


Chains Of Eternity

by verhalen



Series: Northern Lights [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, Worldweavers - Multiverse
Genre: Alternate Universe - 21st Century, Alternate Universe - Earth, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Beach Sex, Birthday, Blow Jobs, Consensual Kink, Crossover of 'verses, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daddy Kink, Developing Relationship, Double Anal Penetration, Double Oral Penetration, Drunk Dancing, Elf/Human Relationship(s), Elves In The Present Day, Established Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Relationships, Explicit Sexual Content, Family, Family Dynamics, Family Reunions, Fandom Trumps Hate, Father/Son Incest, Fisting, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Sensitives On Earth, Force Sensitivity, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Gay Sex, Half-Sibling Incest, Iceland, Identity Reveal, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Incestuous House Of Finwë, Leashes, Light Bondage, Long, M/M, Magical Realism, Maglor (Tolkien) Through History, Maglor Does 80s Karaoke, Maglor Gets A Puppy, Maglor Gets a Hug, Maglor in the Modern-day, Marijuana, May/December Relationship, Mutual Pining, Older Man/Younger Man, Oral Sex, Outdoor Sex, Parallel Universes, Past Abuse, Past Lives, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Porn With Plot, Post-Canon, References to Depression, References to Drugs, Reincarnation, Relationship Negotiation, Rimming, Scotland, Secret Identity, Sexual Roleplay, Sexual Tension, Silmarils, Slow Burn, Telekinesis, Telepathic Bond, Telepathy, That Fic Where Maglor Listens To The Cure And Depeche Mode Constantly, The Force, The Valar are either useless or despicable, Threesome - M/M/M, Time Skips, Touch-Starved Maglor, Trans Female Character, Uncle/Nephew Incest, Voyeurism, Weddings, the slowest of slow burns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2019-11-15 08:35:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 50
Words: 349,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18070109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verhalen/pseuds/verhalen
Summary: The sequel toDon't Threaten Me With A Good Time. (Also a mini-prequel to that story, in the first five chapters.) It is not necessary to readDon't Threaten Me With A Good Timefirst to be able to understand or enjoy this, but it does provide some background context.Sören and Dooku live a cozy, happy life together in Iceland. They have everything they want - so they think. But their world is about to get turned upside down, with a blast from Sören's past - the return of his ex Alejandro Magalhães, a musician, who is on vacation in Svalbarðseyri with his companion, Van. And "Alejandro" and Van are both far more than what they seem, drawing them into an ancient conflict...An AU set on a different version of 21st-century Earth, where a minority of the population is Force sensitive. A crossover with Spiced_Wine'sDark Princeuniverse, and draws inspiration from Narya_Flame'sParadoxuniverse.





	1. Eye of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/gifts), [Narya (Narya_Flame)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/gifts), [Chantress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Ways of Paradox](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14638137) by [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame). 



> I would like to give a very special thank-you to the following people:
> 
> [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/works) for creating Vanimórë and the _Dark Prince_ universe, and for giving me permission to borrow him. Spiced_Wine bid on my work for Fandom Trumps Hate 2019, with the prompt being Vanimórë in the setting of my choice. The bid for this work has gone to the Transgender Legal Defense Fund.
> 
> [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/works) for the _Paradox_ universe, with Maglor in the modern day, which has been an inspiration on this work (though this is set in a different 'verse).
> 
> [Chantress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chantress/pseuds/Chantress) for ~~helping enable my insanity~~ letting me bounce off ideas and feels and flail and make dying whale noises at her. You rock, bae. <3
> 
> I'd also like to thank the Fandom Trumps Hate organizers and everyone who's participated.

_asato mā sad gamaya_  
_tamaso mā jyotir gamaya_  
_mṛtyor mā amṛtaṁ gamaya_

From ignorance lead me to truth  
From darkness lead me to light  
From death lead me to immortality

\--Brhadaranyaka Upanishad, I.iii.28

 

...the starbird can never die—whenever it seems to be gone, it's actually renewing itself in the heart of a nova.

 _-_ Sabine Wren (Rebel Alliance)

 

~ ~ ~

**Eye of the Storm**

 

Every day in Valhalla was exactly the same - fight on the battlefield all day, be injured, die, resurrect to feast and fuck and fight again.  
  
Most seemed content with their lot, or at least, they did not dare defy All-Father.  
  
But as the days - years, what was time anymore? - wore on, Sigurd was healing less and less from his wounds. His Valkyrie, Brynhildur, tried her best, but it was becoming apparent that he was soul sick... and she understood why. She, too, was growing tired of the same thing. The screams, the pain, the blood, the carnage - it seemed so senseless. Valhalla was starting to feel less like a reward for warriors who had served bravely, and more like a realm where these souls were trapped and enslaved, so All-Father could feed on the energy of endless battle...  
  
...endless suffering.  
  
The day finally came when Sigurd did not rise with the others at dawn. Brynhildur went to him, sang spells over him, let the light flow from her hands. It took hours for him to wake, and when he did and their eyes met, it seemed that he was staring at something very, very far away.  
  
"It is time for you to fight," Brynhildur said.  
  
"I have no fight left," Sigurd replied.  
  
Brynhildur went to the throne of All-Father herself. "We are tired of this. My Charge and I. This is not what we want anymore."  
  
Her gaze locked with his one eye, and for a moment, the eye blazed, like it was on fire. But the fire was cold, sending chills through her.  
  
At last, the god spoke. "It may not be what you want, but it is what  _I_  want. You will go to your Charge, you will rouse him, you will make him fight."  
  
Brynhildur stood her ground. "No."  
  
"What do you mean, no?"  
  
"I mean,  _no_."  
  
The All-Father rose from his throne. Now the same fire was all around him. He gathered it into his palm and threw it at the Valkyrie. She raised her shield, singing spells of ice to create a larger shield around her. Still she fell, but was unburnt.  
  
Unburnt. Unbroken. She was even angrier now. Before she knew what she was doing, she threw her spear, and it pierced the All-Father in the shoulder.  
  
She strode to him, slowly. She began to chant spells, weaving magic in her fingers, to infect, to fester, to  _plague_ the wound. To drain some of the power he'd been collecting over thousands of years, keeping these souls captive.  
  
And then, he removed the patch over the eye he didn't have anymore, and from that socket shot a beam of light. Brynhildur screamed as it ripped into her, and across the bond with her Charge, she could feel him caught in the beam as well, being torn asunder.  
  
There was the feeling of falling, dizzy, an endless drop of terror. Valhalla had been the home of the brave, but what All-Father wanted to taste now was their fear. To draw power back into himself through that, as they plunged, falling faster and faster.  
  
Brynhildur reached out and took Sigurd's hand, to soothe both of them - the only comfort she could give, but it made a difference.  
  
_I will not give you your victory, All-Father._  
  
Brynhildur sang, but this time, she called to the ancient Music, the runes that were greater in power than All-Father who had sacrificed himself to find them. Power above his power, the guiding force of creation.  
  
She began to melt, but it was all relief. They were evading his grasp.  
  
  
_  
  
**1967**  
  
It was May 4th, the seventh birthday of Brynhildur Jónsdóttir. Her parents didn't have much money, but they still tried to do what they could to make their three children happy on special days, especially little Brynhildur, who for years had been having nightmares of a blazing eye, watching her. It broke her parents' heart, not knowing how to help her.  
  
What little Brynhildur wanted, though, didn't cost money. She wanted to visit the Dimmuborgir, and that was just a short drive away from their house in Akureyri. Brynhildur loved painting and drawing, and wanted to make pictures of the Dimmuborgir.  
  
So her parents planned an afternoon trip for her and her siblings, packing a picnic lunch. It was a magical day, complete with flying kites on the spring breeze - kites her grandfather Sören had made himself.  
  
Feeling adventurous, Brynhildur asked her parents if she could walk around by herself. They agreed, since she wouldn't be too far away, and there was little that could hurt her here.  
  
But within fifteen minutes of her exploration, her parents heard a bloodcurdling shriek. Jón was on his feet and running immediately, and relieved to see Brynhildur was unscathed, though badly shaken and crying.  
  
"What is it,  _krútt mitt?_ "  
  
"There was a man..." Brynhildur gasped for breath. "He was tall, and had pointy ears, long black hair... and purple eyes..."  
  
Jón Sörensson gave his daughter an incredulous look, but nonetheless, prowled around the ancient rock formations. There was no one else there, least of all someone fitting the description ( _pointy ears?_ ).  
  
Brynhildur cried all the way home. At first Jón told her, "It was just your imagination playing tricks on you." But that made her even more upset, so finally Jón asked, "Did the man you saw... hurt you at all?"  
  
Brynhildur vehemently shook her head. "No," she said.  
  
"Not at all?"  
  
"No." Brynhildur sniffed loudly. "He just looked at me."  
  
Brynhildur calmed down some when they got back home, but for the next few days she still showed signs of being badly shaken up. After a week had passed and Brynhildur still wasn't back to her normal bubbly self, Jón and his wife Dagný talked about it and it was agreed that Brynhildur should visit Jón's mother, Margrét.  
  
Margrét and her husband Sören lived on a farm with sheep and goats. Sören was an eccentric whimsical man who'd done things like travel Iceland in a hot air balloon he'd built himself; Margrét was a strong, no-nonsense woman who had lived through two world wars and was pessimistic about the way the world was changing - she was glad her son hadn't yet moved to Reykjavik or "the big city", as she called it, though she was disappointed that he, too, was not a farmer, believing that hard work on the land did a body good. Even her "slightly touched" husband agreed with that notion, though Sören's view of country life was more poetic than hers.  
  
Margrét also knew a wealth of folktales, and believed some of them. Her own grandmother, Jónina, was rumored to be a witch, and while she had never confirmed nor denied this rumor, Jónina was a competent healer - very much the village doctor - and Jónina also routinely left out milk and porridge for the  _huldufólk_. Jónina had even claimed to have seen them, and that one confirmed an old family legend of elven blood. When other farms were ruined during weird weather of the 1800s, this family farm prospered, and Margrét seemed to believe it was her grandmother's good standing with the  _huldufólk_  that got them through.  
  
In the enlightened late 1960s, Jón dismissed his mother's superstitions as unscientific nonsense, beliefs best left behind as the world marched on. He had, in fact, kept Brynhildur from visiting her grandmother very often precisely due to not wanting her mind poisoned with "old wives' tales". But now, in his desperation, and knowing Brynhildur didn't know enough about Icelandic folklore or any kind of fantasy literature to be making up stories of a man who matched elven description, here he was, sending his daughter to stay with his mother for awhile.  
  
"You saw an elf," Margrét told her, plain and simple.  
  
"What's an elf?" Brynhildur asked.  
  
Margrét pressed her hand to her forehead and groaned, annoyed that she had to explain this, but she did her best. "They are powerful beings," Margrét said. "Not of this world, yet still connected to this one through magic in the land. And sometimes, elves have made friends with Men."  
  
"Is it like a guardian angel?" Dagný Bjarnisdóttir was raised Catholic - an anomaly in Iceland - and though the children were not raised religiously at all, Dagný nonetheless still sometimes prayed.  
  
"Yes and no." Margrét considered.  
  
"I was really scared," Brynhildur confessed. "I knew he wouldn't hurt me, but he still felt... wild."  
  
"Yes." Margrét nodded. "Elves are wild magic. Your reaction was only natural."  
  
"What do you think he wanted?"  
  
"He probably is watching you, because elves have been watching this family for a very long time." Margrét leaned back in her chair, and then resumed her knitting.  
  
"Why are elves watching us?"  
  
"We are part-elf, according to my grandmother."  
  
"Then why aren't our ears pointy? Why aren't we shiny like they are?"  
  
"Because we have to live in the world of Men." There was more to it, but not for a seven year old's ears.  
  
Brynhildur pouted. "I want to go see the elf again."  
  
"Even if your pabbi takes you back to the Dimmuborgir... maybe you will see him, maybe you won't. Elves don't come and go as we please, they come and go as they please."  
  
"That's not fair."  
  
Margrét threw her head back and laughed. "They would say you expecting them to show up at your whim, isn't fair, child."  
  
Brynhildur folded her arms and looked down. "Hmph."  
  
Then Margrét leaned forward and said, "Also. Child. As I say, we have to live in the world of Men. This means it is probably not a good idea for you to tell a lot of people about what you saw."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"They are the hidden folk. They don't show themselves to everyone, and those they do show themselves to... usually have interesting lives enough without calling more attention to themselves by saying they visit with elves. Not everyone is understanding about that sort of thing. Most people aren't, these days."  
  
Brynhildur wrinkled her nose. "Pabbi wasn't, at first. He thought it was just my imagination."  
  
Margrét nodded, and continued knitting. "And that is your own father, who loves you no matter what. Now think about what it would be like to tell someone who  _didn't_  love you the same way. It could be very dangerous for you. People fear things they don't understand."  
  
_  
  
  
**1975**  
  
Not long after the meeting with the elf, Brynhildur found she could do certain things - move objects without touching them, sometimes she could read minds, and most of the time she felt the emotions of others, making her highly sensitive.  
  
But she had taken her grandmother's caution to heart, and kept her abilities a secret as best as she could. On the few occasions someone had spotted her, she instinctively waved her hand and said, "You didn't see that," pushing with her mind. She felt awful about it later, like she was doing something wrong, but it was an act of self-defense, to keep from being discovered. She'd read news reports of experiments the United States government had been conducting with "psychics" - people who had the same abilities she did - and somehow, these people managed to die or worse, disappear.  
  
_People fear things they don't understand._  
  
Since she was a small child, Brynhildur was deeply familiar with fear - she still had nightmares about the blazing eye, watching her. Sometimes when she thought about those nightmares as she was awake during the day, she started to get dizzy, feeling like she was falling. She was able to ground herself, make it stop, but only till it came back again, as it inevitably would.  
  
Living in her strange version of reality, Brynhildur was a bit of a loner - not merely not wanting her secrets somehow exposed, but also, feeling too different, in a way that made her lonely.  
  
Fifteen-year-old Brynhildur spent a lot of time at the local library, reading as much as she could. And when she went home from the library she usually stopped at the local drugstore to have a soda. She was waited on by Sigurd Tollasson, who lived down the street from her and was eighteen now; he'd always been nice to her, and she sometimes wished they could be friends. He was also easy on the eyes, tall, with dark curly hair, a bit of a smoldering look to him with dark eyes and full lips.  
  
Brynhildur did wonder if Sigurd was nice to her because he knew his sister, Katrín, was actively mean to her. Katrín was model-pretty, with long auburn hair, and very fashionable; she was one of the most popular girls at their school. Brynhildur was taller than even most of the boys, lanky, with dark hair and grey eyes. Katrín called them "ice eyes" and among other insults, claimed Brynhildur's "ice eyes" meant she didn't have a soul.  
  
One day, when Brynhildur was overheard crying by her mother - and Brynhildur did her best to not call attention to herself when she was crying - Dagný took her aside and, after finding out why her daughter was crying, explained that Katrín's mother drank, and she and Jón had a few times tried to intervene when they'd overheard or witnessed incidents; Dagný thought Katrín was being like this because of her mother. It was indeed bad enough that Tolli had a cabin out in Svalbarðseyri, where he went to get away from her from time to time.  
  
But even with that knowledge, it was hard to try to keep a compassionate understanding towards Katrín. Brynhildur hated her. She occasionally entertained fantasies of using her gifts to put the bully in her place, pushing Katrín with just her mind down a flight of stairs, or making her trip and fall, or even taking over her mind to make Katrín do something embarrassing that would make her clique shun her. And always, Brynhildur stopped herself, but the temptation was strong.  
  
Sigurd was not like Katrín at all. He was kind and polite. Brynhildur had seen him deliver groceries to one of their elderly neighbors, and help the little old woman with chores that was harder for her to do now, and the only payment he accepted was cookies or pie. Sometimes he'd offer Brynhildur a slice of pie or a few of the cookies he'd been paid with.  
  
She didn't want to have a crush on him, especially if he would be leaving town when he finished school, going to Reykjavik as so many did these days. But she kept stopping at the drugstore every weekday, and she knew perfectly damn well it wasn't just to get a Coca-Cola.  
  
When school was out for the summer, she spent more time at the library, and came earlier to the drugstore. Sigurd was allowed to play music while he worked, and he had a nice collection of vinyl - he was a big fan of the British band Led Zeppelin, and Brynhildur loved to hear him sing along as he stocked shelves and cleaned the store.  
  
One day, Sigurd was on a ladder, repairing a light fixture. But the ladder was unstable, and Brynhildur watched him fall. Not thinking, just acting, Brynhildur waved her hand and shoved over a pile of large cardboard boxes that Sigurd was working through to stock shelves, and Sigurd landed on those instead of hitting the hard floor.  
  
After a few moments, laying there in a state of shock, Sigurd sat up, slowly, and began to move his limbs to assess any injuries. Then he just stared at Brynhildur.  
  
She froze like a deer in headlights, feeling like she couldn't breathe. Her deepest secret had just been exposed to the boy she had a crush on. Nobody else had seen what happened, just Sigurd, but even one person was too much.  
  
Brynhildur thought about pushing into his mind and telling him he didn't see that, but she couldn't. Instead, she ran.  
  
She ran all the way home, and threw herself onto her bed and cried. She skipped dinner that night, claiming she didn't feel well, and just lay in her bed, near-paralyzed with fear. Fear of what he'd think of her. Fear of him  _telling_  anyone, especially his snotty sister. And then, her mother knocked at her door.  
  
"Brynhildur," Dagný said, "you have a visitor."  
  
Brynhildur dragged herself out of bed and went outside, where Sigurd was waiting for her.  
  
"What do you want," she said in a flat voice.  
  
"I... wanted to thank you." Sigurd shifted his weight from one foot to another, looking down.  
  
Brynhildur looked away. "Please don't tell anyone about..." She didn't want to say it aloud, and she didn't push into his mind when she said it. She just hoped he'd be decent enough to respect her wishes.  
  
"Brynhildur."  
  
The way he spoke her name, Brynhildur looked at him, even though she felt embarrassed, wanting to be anywhere but here.  
  
Then he spoke directly into her mind.  _Brynhildur. If you can hear me right now, hold up two fingers on your right hand._  
  
Brynhildur blinked, wondering if she was hallucinating, if this was wishful thinking, but she did as he asked, and then he nodded.  
  
"Good," he said. And then he waved his right hand, and Brynhildur watched as a small rock lifted up from the ground, and floated over to her. She took it, instinctively.  
  
"You're not alone," Sigurd told her. "And now, neither am I."  
  
  
_  
  
**1984**  
  
On November 25th, there was thundersnow. In the midst of the raging storm, Sören and Dagnýr Sigurdsson were born, seven minutes apart.  
  
Sigurd was at the hospital with his three-year-old son, Magnús, when he got the news in the waiting room. As soon as he was allowed to see the children, he carried Magnús there, trying to keep himself together. And promptly fell apart when he saw his wife, cradling their newborn baby sons.  
  
He was only twenty-six, but felt much older. He'd had a difficult life, with an alcoholic mother, a distant father, and a younger sister who treated everyone like trash. But even without those complications, or the way his gifts set him apart, he'd been haunted by nightmares his entire life - a warrior, slain again and again, but first watching his brothers bleed and die, in pain.  
  
He had felt a sense of doom upon him his whole life, and now, as he touched his twins for the first time, petting the little tuft of dark hair baby Sören had on his head, it was  _here._  
  
He could  _feel_  the same power in them, except it felt amplified, having two parents who had these gifts, rather than just one random ancestor.  
  
What kind of life would it bring them?  
  
What kind of  _attention_  would it bring them? From  _where?_  From  _who?_  Sigurd's hair stood on end, and his eyes met Brynhildur's, then. And in his mind's eye he saw a burning eye, watching them.  
  
Waiting.  
  
  
_  
  
**1990**  
  
The official coroner's report had been that Sigurd Tollasson had died of a stroke, prematurely at age twenty-nine. But Brynhildur knew better. There had been a disturbance in the air, and Sigurd had gone outside to confront whatever it was lurking out there. He was found dead in the snow.  
  
Shortly after his death, they moved from a house into an apartment in Akureyri. Brynhildur didn't just want to not have constant painful reminders of her husband, but to her way of thinking, they would be less likely to show themselves if they were in a more urban area, with more people around.  
  
And for four years after his death, her theory held true. There were no more disturbances from them, apart from the occasional dream where they taunted her, making her live the last few moments of Sigurd's life.  
  
Brynhildur's grandparents died in those four years, and her parents also. Her sister moved to Scotland, and her brother moved to Australia. She felt completely and utterly alone in this world, apart from her children, who she doted on.  
  
On a normal rainy day, she went grocery shopping, and on the drive back home, the headlights behind her became  _the eye._  
  
Her children were being watched by a neighbor, and Brynhildur decided they could stay there awhile longer. She took a detour, taking the thirty-minute drive out of Akureyri to the Dimmuborgir. Now, a thunderstorm was raging.  
  
With her grey cloak and dark hair whipping around her in the wind, she walked from her car to the lava fields, her hands raised. She felt the electricity crackling in her fingers, and when the shadow beings rose, she shot it at them, blasting them into ash.  
  
She could feel  _him_  watching her, the one who had enslaved her husband to war so long ago, had cast her out - she had remembered, much as Sigurd remembered. The rage inside her built to a boiling point, and with her mind, she reached out and hit him as hard as she could, in that burning eye.  
  
_You. Stay. Away from me. You stay away from_  my children.  _Filth._  
  
His presence withdrew, and the storm quieted back to peaceful falling rain, with sun shining through the clouds as she picked up the children. Magnús and Dagnýr chattered, their usual bubbly selves, and Sören was quiet and brooding - he  _knew_  something was wrong, something had happened.  
  
When they got home, Brynhildur's head was throbbing, her vision blurring. She felt more exhausted than she had ever been in her life, like that fight at the Dimmuborgir had drained every last ounce of strength she had.  _I overdid it._  She took a few deep breaths.  _If I take a nap, I'll be fine._  
  
Sören blinked slowly. "Mamma?"  
  
She pet him, not wanting him to be alarmed, even though she knew the power was strongest in him of the three and he couldn't be fooled. "It's all right,  _krútt mitt._ "  
  
Sören gave her a look, suspicion in his large dark eyes.  
  
Brynhildur patted him. "Go play with your brothers. I'll take a nap and then I'll start dinner."  
  
She lay down on the couch, and closed her eyes. Everything went dark, and there was peace. The tension in her body rolled out, like she was melting.  
  
Then she was falling again, and  _he_  was back. His grasp wrapped around her, the burning eye forced her to look upon it.  
  
Then there was a woman, who looked like she was made of pure moonlight.  _This one is mine._  
  
A  _growl_  answered her.  
  
_No,_  the woman told him.  _You may not have her. She has_  our  _blood._  She opened her arms to Brynhildur.  _Come, child._  
  
_  
  
  
"Mamma? You have to wake up now."   
  
Sören shook her, but she wouldn't wake up. "Mamma? Wake up. Wake up, Mamma..."  
  
It was dark, and well past the time she should have woken up. Sören was hungry now, as were his brothers, and it was late, and his mother's skin was cold. When she wouldn't wake up, he tried to remember the number to call for emergency - 112 - repeating it over and over again as he headed to the phone. He dialed, and told the person on the other line, through his tears, that his mother wouldn't wake up.  
  
A little while later there were many sirens, and paramedics carried out his mother, in a bag. They asked Sören a lot of questions, that he mostly didn't have answers for. His brothers just cried.  
  
Finally his aunt Katrín, his father's sister who he barely knew, showed up, reeking of beer.  
  
"Your mother is dead. You're coming home with me."


	2. Saudade

**Saudade**

 

 **2009**  
  
It was Friday night, and Sören Sigurdsson had just gotten off working his shift as a waiter. He was tired, but didn't want to go straight home to his flat in Reykjavik, that he shared with his sister Margrét. Margrét was working at the bar tonight, and he didn't want to be alone.  
  
Sören opted to stop at a coffeehouse, which had live entertainment on Friday nights. It was usually nothing special, but having a cup of hot cocoa and a dessert while zoning out to music in the presence of other humans would help him relax.  
  
He took his sketchbook, a canvas, and oil pastels in with him to the coffeehouse, and as he waited for his cocoa and cheesecake, he stroked his beard for a moment, thinking, and then began to sketch the couple sitting across from him.  _At least some people are happy and in love._  
  
Just as his coffee was being delivered, the emcee announced, "Give a round of applause for Alejandro Magalhães."  
  
It wasn't a name you heard every day in Reykjavik. Sören put down his sketching for a moment and watched as a very tall man took the stage, carrying an acoustic guitar. He had long black hair, was pale in a gothic way, clean-shaven, sultry-looking - somehow pretty and handsome at the same time - dressed in a deep blue pirate shirt over black leather pants. He had a black, lace-edged fingerless glove on his right hand.  
  
Sören had an eclectic taste in music, though he tended to favor goth rock - Joy Division, Siouxie Sioux, The Cure - and industrial like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. But he also liked R&B, like Pharrell, and even sometimes pop, like Lady Gaga. The sight of the acoustic guitar made him think  _this is going to be some indie hipster folk rock bullshit_ , and he went back to sketching.  
  
Then this Alejandro Magalhães leaned into the microphone, tapped it awkwardly, cleared his throat and said, in English, "This is a song I call 'By the Sea'."  
  
He strummed his guitar and began to sing, and Sören stopped sketching. All he could do was stare at the beautiful man, and listen to his beautiful voice, singing in English and Portuguese. Sören got the impression of Cocteau Twins if Jeff Buckley was the singer, from the melody and the chord progressions and the emotion and power in his voice, but this was even more sublime. It gave him chills.  
  
It made him  _ache_.  
  
Sören also began to see pictures in his head. He often preferred to draw and paint to music, putting him in the right state of mind to concentrate on bringing the visions already in his mind's eye to shape and form, but it was another thing entirely to start seeing things as he listened to music. He reached for his art supplies again, but he wasn't going to resume drawing the couple across from him, now. He began to work with his oil pastels on the canvas. Drawing the sea. Except the sea had a strange light to it.  
  
As Alejandro continued his songs, Sören continued to draw, feeling like his mind had been set on fire. Every now and again he paused, to not cramp his wrist, and to not let the cocoa and cheesecake he spent money on go to waste. And a few times, he looked across the room and his eyes met the singer's. They were a beautiful silver-grey, extraordinary eyes.  
  
Sören had never believed in love at first sight, thinking it a stupid cliche, but every time he looked at those eyes, it felt like his heart stopped.  
  
Alejandro's set was two hours long, and at the end of it, Sören had a complete canvas. Alejandro got a standing ovation, taking a bow. Most of the coffeehouse patrons had left - it was late - but a few remained and Alejandro lingered as they came to shake his hand, compliment his performance.  
  
At last Sören got up enough nerve to approach him, hands behind his back.  
  
"That was lovely," Sören told him in English, which he'd been learning since childhood. "I really needed that tonight, thank you."  
  
"It's been one of those days, yes?" Alejandro had a charming accent.  
  
"Indeed it has." Sören couldn't believe he was doing this, shifting weight awkwardly from one foot to another. "I... have something for you."  
  
"Oh?" Alejandro patted the jar next to him. "My tip jar is here, thank you..."  
  
"It's..." Sören pulled out the small canvas he had behind his back. "I made this, while you were performing. Your music... it. Uh."  
  
Alejandro just stared at the canvas, his jaw open slightly, and Sören took a step back, suddenly feeling nervous, worrying that he didn't like it. Then Alejandro took it, and Sören heard his breath catch.  
  
"Thank you." Alejandro continued looking at the canvas, and for a moment he seemed sad. When he looked up at Sören, there was a wistful look in his eyes that made Sören ache again - the same wistfulness that had come out in his haunting, ethereal music. "Nobody has ever tipped me like this for a performance. This is..." He looked at the canvas again. "Magnificent. You have a gift."  
  
Sören felt warmth flush his cheeks, and his stomach fluttered, and he found himself clapping excitedly like a small child, and then facepalmed, feeling immediately self-conscious about the gesture. Alejandro laughed, but Sören got the sense it wasn't  _at_  him.  
  
"I. Uh." Sören still wanted to bolt, feeling shy. "Should get home. It's been a long day. Thank you again, for your music."  
  
"Thank  _you._ " Alejandro smiled, and that smile took Sören's breath away.  
  
Before Sören could get too far Alejandro called out, "Wait!"  
  
Sören stopped, art supplies in hand, and turned around. "Yes?"  
  
"I never got your name."  
  
_What does it matter?_  But he told him anyway. "Sören. Sören Sigurdsson."  
  
"Have a good rest of the evening, Sören."  
  
On the drive home, Sören was still flushed, heart beating faster, feeling giddy and stupid all at once. "You are fucking ridiculous," Sören told himself, glaring into the rear-view mirror.  
  
  
_  
  
Sören slept in the next day, thankful that for the first time in a month, he didn't have to work on a Saturday. He felt like he was hungover, even though he hadn't had any alcohol yesterday. And though he'd gotten eight hours sleep, he felt like it had been shorter than that. He'd had strange dreams, forests and fire and Alejandro wandering, staring up at the stars, holding back tears.  
  
On his way to the bathroom, Sören heard his sister snoring from her bedroom, and suppressed a grin. He made coffee on his way back, and then sat at his small desk, his usual morning routine of checking e-mail, checking Facebook.  
  
He had a friend request from one Alejandro Magalhães.  
  
_Oh shit._  
  
He was surprised to see that Alejandro had a very small group of friends on Facebook, even fewer than his own. _He's probably just friending you so he can get a neighbor on Farmville or free stuff for Mafia Viking Yakuza Clan or whatever the fuck._  He still accepted the friend request, and looked more closely at Alejandro's profile.  
  
He had very few pictures of himself, and all but one of them were taken at a distance, of him singing and playing the guitar. The one picture that wasn't far away, Alejandro had on sunglasses and it was taken at Stonehenge.  
  
Anyone else, Sören would think it was pretentious  _as fuck_ , but somehow for Alejandro it made sense. The profile said he was from Brazil, and Sören wondered how long he'd been away from his home country.  
  
Alejandro also had a fan page for his music, which more people were on, and Sören clicked Like on that.  
  
Margrét was waking up now, and after a few minutes she poked her head in the open crack of Sören's door. "You want breakfast?" she asked. Sören nodded.  
  
Margrét made them fried fish, sausage, eggs, and toast. After breakfast Sören surveyed the contents of the fridge and cupboards and decided they needed groceries, and dragged himself into the shower, then got changed. He did one last check of Facebook and his e-mail before he headed out, and saw he'd been mentioned on Facebook by Alejandro, who was showing off the oil pastel drawing Sören made for him last night.  
  
Sören thought about commenting, but he felt flustered, and self-conscious for feeling flustered, so he went to the store, trying to not think about it much. When he came back, he was more composed, and made a brief comment on the post:  _Thank you for appreciating my art. It means a lot to me._  He felt trite saying it, since too many people say "it means a lot to me" when it would mean nothing at all, but it did, in fact, mean a lot to Sören. He put his soul into his art, and he could feel Alejandro  _felt_  that, the same way he could feel Alejandro put his soul into his music.  
  
He got messaged awhile later by Alejandro.  _I'm playing the same coffeehouse again this Friday, same time, I'd love it if you came by!_  
  
Sören would be working late again that Friday but he could still make it on time, and the thought of attending another performance excited him. Not simply because Alejandro was gorgeous eye candy, but his voice, his music. He'd felt more inspired than he had in a long time.  
  
_I'll be there,_  Sören replied.  _I'll bring my art supplies again._  
  
_Excellent._  
  
  
_  
  
  
For the next three weeks, Sören attended Alejandro's performances Friday nights at the coffeehouse, and drew or painted while he sang and played, going where the music took him. Even though Sören exhibited art at a local Reyjkavik gallery and it was an important secondary source of income for him, what he made during the performances he gave to Alejandro for free when they were done.  _A gift for a gift,_  he thought to himself.  
  
When a month passed, Sören and Alejandro finally exchanged cell phone numbers, and a couple days after the performance, while Sören was at work waiting tables, his cell went off. He couldn't take the call then, but when he was on break, he recognized Alejandro's number and called back.  
  
"Hello," Sören said. "Sorry about that, I'm at work -"  
  
Alejandro laughed softly. "It's all right. How are you?"  
  
"Busy." Sören gave a nervous laugh. "A bit stressed."  
  
"What time do you get off work?"  
  
"It varies by day, but if you mean tonight, I'm off at 8... why?"  
  
A pause, and then Alejandro said, "Have you eaten? Would you like to have dinner?"  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "I don't have a lot of money right now -"  
  
"I'll pay."  
  
Sören didn't like accepting these kinds of offers, usually because of the implied strings attached, but he couldn't deny he was crushing hard on Alejandro and looking forward to seeing him. "OK... if you don't mind -"  
  
"I don't mind. Shall I pick you up at work?"  
  
Sören groaned. "Can I go home and change? Is 8:45 OK?"  
  
"Yes. Where to pick you up?"  
  
Sören gave him the address, and then spent the next moment flailing before getting back to work. The remaining hours seemed to drag.  
  
Sören got home just as Margrét was about to take off and start her shift at the bar. The sight of her brother smiling and almost bouncing as he walked, made her smile. "Well hello there," she said, putting him in a headlock and giving him a noogie, as Sören laughed and squirmed. "You never look this happy when you come home from work. What's up?"  
  
"Someone's picking me up in twenty minutes."  
  
Margrét raised an eyebrow. "Someone? You have a date?"  
  
Sören blushed. "He didn't call it that, I don't know what it is, but he wanted to have dinner with me."  
  
"Pretty sure it's a date."  
  
Sören rolled his eyes.  
  
"And if you're in this good of a mood, I can tell you like him." Margrét playfully elbowed him. "Is he cute?"  
  
"Cute wouldn't quite be the word I'd use."  _Ethereal. Majestic. Otherworldly._  Alejandro looked too pretty to be human, especially those silvery eyes.  
  
"Ah, hot, then?" Margrét smirked.  
  
"Closer." Sören nodded.  
  
"All right. Well... have fun." Margrét hugged him quickly and kissed his cheek, and affectionately tousled his hair once more. "And Sören? Be safe."  
  
Sören nodded, and let out a small sigh as Margrét walked out and closed the door behind her. Margrét's "be safe" wasn't simply a reminder to use condoms if things happened, nor was it simply a reminder to heed red flags and gut feelings - as a trans woman, Margrét was keenly aware of the potential for assault, even in a progressive country like Iceland. It was a caution to  _be careful about that thing we all have._    
  
From a young age, Margrét, Sören and his fraternal twin brother Dagnýr and their cousin Ari had all manifested certain gifts - the ability to move objects without touching them, a degree of telepathy and empathy, occasional precognitive flashes, though never for anything useful like winning lottery numbers. They could also make suggestions that could compel someone to do or not do something, but they had decided at a young age it was ethical to only do this if their lives or someone else's life depended on it.  
  
Sören remembered very little about his parents, but his mother seemed to have similar gifts. After his mother's death, he and his siblings had been raised by Ari's parents - Ari's mother was their father's sister - and they were alcoholics, and beat them for using these powers, enough that they learned to keep them a secret and to some extent even suppress using them. Also, for some reason, the power of suggestion didn't work on their guardians.  
  
Now that they were adults, Sören and Margrét were much more relaxed about using their powers at home, in private. But they had to be careful.  
  
And it was frustrating. Sören had a steady string of boyfriends and lovers since coming out at the age of seventeen. None of them had the same gifts, nor did he expect them to, but he also felt constantly like he was hiding something, and not merely that, but like he was living on some alternate plane of reality that very few other people could understand.  
  
Sören was very certain that Alejandro didn't have the same powers he had, but there was  _something_  about him, something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Anyone who could write such lush, gorgeous songs and play and sing so beautifully had to have some kind of magic to them. Sören was drawn to that as much as Alejandro's physical beauty.  
  
It was late April, and the days were getting longer, and warmer; the sun was just setting as he got home. Sören didn't know what to wear - he neither wanted to be too casual nor too formal. He decided on a simple black T-shirt, black vest, and black trousers. He tied some of his nape-length mop of black curls back into a ponytail, leaving the rest down.  
  
Alejandro's car was waiting outside - a Jaguar, which made Sören double-take, because most of the artsy types he knew didn't have the kind of money for that kind of vehicle. Sören got in the car and was hit by an intoxicating scent, like petrichor, earth, and musky spice. Alejandro smiled at him. His long black hair was hanging loose, as it always did, and he was wearing a black tunic over black leather pants.  
  
"Do you have any kind of dietary restrictions? Vegan, gluten-free...?" Alejandro raised an eyebrow.  
  
Sören shook his head. "No, but thanks for asking."  
  
Fiskmarkaðurinn was open. Sören was surprised Alejandro had a reservation, for two.  
  
"You knew I'd come...?" Sören raised his eyebrows.  
  
"More like hoping." Alejandro smiled.  
  
Sören's stomach was turning cartwheels and he almost bumped into another of the restaurant patrons on his way to their table.  
  
Alejandro ordered the lobster soup and Robata grilled salmon for himself, and told Sören to get whatever he wanted. Sören decided on a smoked and grilled breast of puffin, with pan-fried ocean perch.  
  
There was a few moments of awkward silence, and then Alejandro asked him, "How was work?"  
  
"Ugh." Sören crinkled his nose. "It was... a day."  
  
"What do you do?"  
  
Sören lowered his head. "I'm a waiter."  
  
"...Oh."  
  
Sören could tell Alejandro wasn't expecting that answer. Sören nodded. "I was in med school but I dropped out because I, uh, couldn't handle it. Art is my true calling, though."  
  
"That's valid." Alejandro nodded.  
  
"What about you?" Sören leaned back in his chair.  
  
"I have some wealth," Alejandro said, "so I just focus on my music."  
  
Sören immediately felt self-conscious, like he was way out of his league with this guy.  _It's not even officially a date, dumbass!_  "Your music is... amazing. I know I've said that already but what you do..." Sören put his hand over his heart.  
  
"The way you draw and paint to my music," Alejandro said, "is amazing."  
  
"How long have you been making music?"  
  
"All my life." Alejandro looked away, as if he were looking at something or someone Sören couldn't see. "Feels like as old as time, sometimes."  
  
Sören laughed, but the wistful, haunted look on Alejandro's face made him stop laughing.  
  
Sören quickly switched gears, feeling suddenly emboldened. "Maybe one of these days you could come play for me, for a few hours, as I work on a more ambitious canvas."  
  
"I'd like that." Their eyes met then, and held. Alejandro's eyes almost seemed to glow.  
  
Their food came, and as they ate, Sören finally noticed awful scarring on Alejandro's right hand - he wore a fingerless glove on his right hand when he performed, but not today. Sören politely looked away, but his eyes kept being drawn back to it, and then finally he noticed Alejandro noticing he was noticing, and Sören said, "Sorry," his face burning.  
  
"It's all right." Alejandro reached across the table and patted his hand. Then he extended the palm of his scarred hand, which had strange geometric patterns seared into it. "It's an old war wound."  
  
Sören gave him a quizzical look. "Iraq?" He didn't look a day over thirty-five.  
  
Alejandro just shook his head and said, quietly, "I don't want to discuss it right now," before taking a bite of food.  
  
Sören wanted to crawl under the table. "I'm sorry," he said again, with a deep sigh.  
  
"You're fine." Alejandro met his eyes, and gave him a reassuring smile. "Truly."  
  
Sören changed the subject again. "How are you liking Iceland?"  
  
"I love Iceland. Beautiful country, beautiful people."  
  
"How long have you been here?"  
  
"Almost a year." Not a precise answer, but good enough.  
  
"What brought you here?"  
  
Alejandro paused, considering his response, and then said, simply, "I needed a change of scenery."  
  
"Well... if it's been inspiring music like  _that_ , it's a good change." Sören nodded.  
  
"What about you... I take it you're a native Icelander?"  
  
Sören nodded again. "Lived here my whole life though I'm not from Reykjavik. I'm from Akureyri, up north. I moved to the big city a year ago."  
  
Alejandro smiled, and Sören waited for the response a lot of foreigners gave, that Reykjavik was hardly "the big city" compared to everywhere else, but when you grew up in a town of 18,000 people Reykjavik looked huge. But what he said instead floored him: "I like the way you say 'city.'" Alejandro's smile grew bigger as he said, "See-tee," an imitation of Sören's accent, but he sensed no malice there.  
  
Sören blushed, and Alejandro kept smiling at him.  
  
"So," Alejandro said, "since turnabout is fair play... what brought you to the big 'see-tee'?"  
  
Sören gave him a mock glare, then laughed, and said, "I, too, needed a change of scenery." Even though Alejandro hadn't been very forthcoming with his own answers, Sören saw no shame in honesty, though he wasn't going to dump his full sad life story on him right now either. "Dysfunctional family, easier to get into the art scene here, and, well, in a small town I exhausted my dating options as a gay man."  
  
"Ah." Alejandro nodded, seeming very nonchalant about Sören's revelation of being gay.  
  
Another few moments of silence passed and then Alejandro broke the silence. "How old are you?"  
  
"Twenty-four. I'll be twenty-five in November." Sören smirked. "How old are you?"  
  
"Old enough."  
  
Sören snickered at that, and then he gave Alejandro a look.  
  
"Over thirty," Alejandro said.  
  
Sören continued glaring, and finally with an exaggerated sigh of mock annoyance, Alejandro reached for his wallet and produced a passport; the passport listed Alejandro at age thirty-three, which seemed about right, yet somehow didn't at the same time.  
  
"So," Alejandro said, "dessert?"  
  
Sören shook his head. "I've indulged in sweets a bit lately and need to watch it." Sören had a high metabolism and was physically active enough, but he still felt the occasional pang of guilt from his background at med school, and the fact that his parents had died young made him health-conscious as well.  
  
"All right." Alejandro nodded. "Do you want to go straight home, or do you mind sitting in the park with me for awhile?"  
  
"The park sounds nice."  
  
They sat by the pond, close to each other, almost touching but not quite. Sören decided to sketch, using colored pencils, and Alejandro hummed to himself. After awhile Sören looked at him and said, "That's beautiful. Is that one of your songs?"  
  
"It's not quite a song yet." Alejandro put his hand on Sören's shoulder; the touch was like an electric shock. "Wait here, while I get my guitar and my notepad."  
  
Alejandro came back a moment later with his acoustic guitar, and an interesting-looking notebook, indigo leather with an eight-pointed star on the front. Alejandro began strumming a few chords, humming along, and then at last, started to sing, wordlessly at first, then found words. Sören's sketching intensified, watching the swans on the pond, and he found himself drawing a swan lake, and two boys with long hair at the lake. One of the boys had long dark hair, like a young version of Alejandro, and the other had long coppery auburn hair. They were dressed in ornate robes,  _like the kind wizards would wear,_  Sören thought to himself as he sketched. The boy with dark hair had an indigo robe.   
  
Sören didn't quite understand why he was drawing what he was drawing, only that he was following the pictures the music put in his mind... and the feeling behind them. There was a sense of innocence there, a moment of joy and purity, ephemeral, and a spark of sadness for being lost. Sören watched his color pencils light up the sky in a riot of colors, and the flowers taking bloom around the lake had a bioluminescent glow. He also drew a faint, shining aura around each of the boys, blending colors.  
  
Alejandro continued to sing and play, seemingly lost in it, making notations every now and again. And when he was finished, Sören was finished. He waited a moment before handing Alejandro the sketch.  
  
Alejandro looked at it with a pained expression on his face.  
  
_Oh shit, I've blown it. Colored pencils was too childlike -_  
  
Alejandro looked up at him, with unshed tears in his eyes.  
  
"Are you all right?" Sören asked.  
  
Alejandro nodded. "I should probably take you home now."  
  
He drove slowly, saying nothing, while Sören shifted awkwardly in his seat. When they arrived at Sören's apartment building, Alejandro stopped the car, and they lingered for a moment.  
  
"I enjoyed this evening," Alejandro told him.  
  
"Really?" Sören asked.  
  
He nodded solemnly.  
  
"I did too," Sören said. "I very much enjoyed your new song. And, um, I'm sorry about the picture -"  
  
"Don't be sorry." Alejandro said.  
  
"You didn't like it -"  
  
"No. I... loved it." Alejandro looked down, and then into his eyes.  
  
"You looked as if you didn't -"  
  
Alejandro sighed. "I loved it. It evoked a certain painful emotional response in me, that much is true, but it doesn't mean I don't love it, the same way you can watch a sad movie or listen to a sad song and still love that." Alejandro touched Sören's shoulder, and Sören felt that same electricity again. "You like my songs, and all of them are sadness. Especially the one I wrote tonight."  
  
The hand that was on Sören's shoulder was the scarred one, and Sören instinctively found himself reaching up to touch it, tracing his thumb over the scars, almost reverently. Alejandro squeezed his hand, and that moment of connection made Sören harden.  
  
Sören licked his lips, his mouth suddenly dry. He waited, to see if anything else would happen, but Alejandro just continued to hold his hand, until he withdrew it. Sören's hardness was almost painful in its need, and Sören felt the urge to bolt before Alejandro noticed it.  
  
"I'd like to see you again," Alejandro told him.  
  
"I'd like that, too."  
  
"You'll be by the coffeehouse on Friday, but... what are you doing this weekend?"  
  
"I work weekends," Sören said, "and usually longer hours than the rest of the week, so weekends aren't normally good for me. But, uh, I have Monday the 4th off?"  
  
"Monday is fine," Alejandro said. "Perhaps we could spend several hours together? An afternoon trip, and then dinner?"  
  
"Yes." Sören nodded.  
  
When Sören got back to his room, he masturbated to his first fantasy of Alejandro, and then after his climax he lay there a few minutes, staring up at the ceiling, feeling awkward about it.  _I hope I don't fuck this up._  
  
  
_  
  
  
Monday, May 4th came around, and Sören started the day giddy, excited to see Alejandro again and spend more time with him. And then he felt nervous and awkward again, wondering if Alejandro was even gay, and would be interested if he was.  
  
_That_  worried him a little. Sören was usually better at reading people. Alejandro wasn't quite inscrutable, Sören could pick up occasional flares of emotion from him - mostly a deep sense of melancholy. But this was one of the first times in Sören's life when he couldn't tell right away if someone was gay, straight, or bi, or if they were at all attracted to him.  
  
Sören began to think about his dating history, starting when he came out at seventeen. He'd had a string of boyfriends as well as a number of one-night-stands, but had yet to be in a serious, committed relationship more than a few months. He'd also been cheated on more than once. In fact, Sören's first experience with being cheated on was the first and thus so far only time he'd been in a live-in arrangement - newly out of the hospital following his breakdown in med school, Sören had taken up painting in art therapy and had been encouraged to start showing his work. One of the galleries he contacted was owned by a man who took intense interest in his work, and it became apparent quickly that he was also interested in Sören's ass. The man was in his fifties - Sören liked older men, and he was a handsome silver fox; he also had that commanding, dominating presence that Sören was drawn to. For five months Sören lived with him as his sugar baby, taken under his wing into the Reykjavik art world. And then his patron's focus changed - he came home to find the latest new protégé getting fucked doggy-style. The one good thing that had come out of that relationship was giving Sören a circle of contacts, people other than his ex-lover who were willing to show his work, and from then on Sören had a policy to not get involved with anyone doing so, making it clear interest had to be in his art, not other qualities.  
  
Sören had since that time lived with Margrét, who had begun medically transitioning two years ago. They looked out for each other, both painfully aware of their sibling's struggle with depression.  
  
Thinking about his dating history made Sören feel sad, and Margrét noticed the change in his mood. Without saying anything, she walked across the kitchen and gave him a hug.  
  
Sören squeezed her, and Margrét ruffled his hair. "You really like this guy, don't you," Margrét said.  
  
Sören swallowed hard, and nodded. "I barely know him, but I do. There's something about him."  
  
Margrét took a step back, her hands on her brother's shoulders. "If you want to bring him back here later, you may." Sören hadn't been in the habit of bringing people home for awhile, not that Sören had dated in a few months. Then Margrét smirked and said, "And then if I'm home, I can threaten to kick his arse if he hurts you."  
  
Sören threw his head back and laughed. "Yes, Mamma."  
  
And then it hit him -  _Mamma._  Today would have been his mother's forty-ninth birthday, if she was still alive. Tears burned his eyes, and he closed them, remembering the last time he saw her, finding her dead body on the couch, and then the last days of her being alive, so full of life, trying to keep it together after their father died. He barely remembered his father, though he remembered his mother loved him very much and told happy, funny stories about him.  
  
When he looked at Margrét again, he saw the tears reflected in her own eyes. Sören was almost six when their mother died, and Margrét was nine. Margrét had been five when their father died - she had memories of both of them.  
  
They hugged once more, rocking each other, crying a little together. "Fuck," was all Sören could choke out.  
  
Margrét patted him gently, the way their mother used to.  
  
Sören felt a pang of guilt that his parents' graves - they were buried next to each other - were all the way up in Akureyri, and he was down here. He facepalmed. Then his cell phone went off. It was Alejandro.  
  
"Hello," Sören said, trying to keep the quaver out of his voice, and failing.  
  
"Hello, Sören! How are you?"  
  
"I'm fine." Sören wasn't fine. "How are you?"  
  
"Very well, thank you. Listen, I'm on my way to pick you up!"  
  
Sören let out a sigh.  
  
Alejandro immediately caught it. "...Are you OK?"  
  
"Jæja, it's just..." Sören took a deep breath. "Today isn't a good day..."  
  
"Oh." The disappointment in his voice was palpable.  
  
"It's not you." Sören immediately felt like an ass, like he was already blowing it. "It's... something came up..." His voice broke, the tears coming again.  
  
Margrét snatched the phone way. "Hi there!" she said in her heavily accented English. "This is Sören's sister Margrét."  
  
"Hello," Alejandro said.  
  
"Please come pick him up and drag his arse out of here so he doesn't spend all day moping around."  
  
Sören glared at her. Margrét glared back.  
  
_You'll thank me later,_  Margrét spoke into his mind.  
  
Sören gave her the finger and yanked the phone back. "Hello, it's me again," Sören said.  
  
Alejandro chuckled. "I'm almost there. Meet me outside."  
  
Sören did, managing to pull himself together. He climbed into Alejandro's Jaguar and mustered a smile. Alejandro smiled back.  
  
"We could start with Tjörnin again?" Alejandro asked.  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
They rode there in silence, and when they were almost there, Alejandro said, "Pardon me for prying, but what's troubling you today?"  
  
Sören sighed. "You probably don't want to hear it."  
  
"I wouldn't ask if I didn't want to hear it, Sören."  
  
Sören took a deep breath and said, "Today's my mother's birthday."  
  
Alejandro got very quiet and then he said, "Oh. Are you feeling guilty about not celebrating with her? Or are you not on speaking terms...?"  
  
"She's dead." Sören frowned. "She died when I was almost six." He cringed. "I found her body."  
  
There was a sharp inhalation, and then Alejandro reached out and squeezed his shoulder. "I'm sorry."  
  
"So am I."  
  
Alejandro pulled over, and then he turned to face Sören. "What do you want to do today?"  
  
"Truthfully?"  
  
Alejandro nodded. "If you need a day to yourself I won't be offended -"  
  
"My sister seems to be under the impression that my mental health will suffer if I don't get out and about today, so." Sören shrugged. "I like your company, being here with you is fine."  
  
"But." Alejandro raised an eyebrow.  
  
Sören ran a hand through his curls, nervous. "My mother is buried up in Akureyri. I feel bad that I can't get there to, I don't know, pay respects at her grave." Sören shook her head. "I feel so stupid for saying that because when you're dead, you're dead, it's not like she'll care -"  
  
"I care." Their eyes met. "You know... it only takes forty-five minutes to fly to Akureyri."  
  
Sören shook his head. "I work as a waiter for a living, and though I occasionally sell my art, I'm always kind of broke. Otherwise yes, I'd fly up there -"  
  
" _I'm offering to fly you up there and back._ "  
  
Sören leaned back in the passenger seat, considering. "I don't feel comfortable accepting that kind of money from strangers -"  
  
"We're not strangers."  
  
_Aren't we?_  Sören raised his eyebrows. "You barely know me."  
  
"That's not really true," Alejandro said. "Your soul shines through your art. I... may have had a look at the gallery where your work is displayed right now."  
  
Sören facepalmed. "Oh god."  
  
"It's beautiful."  
  
Sören blushed. "OK, but..."  
  
"No buts. Let me do this for you."  
  
Sören frowned again. "Do we really want to fly twice in one day, though? A quick trip there and back? It's already afternoon."  
  
"We could stay the night there, if you want to stop at your place and pack an overnight bag..." Alejandro gestured to the back of his car, towards the trunk. "I always keep something on hand for myself in case I have to go anywhere on short notice."  
  
"And I assume you're offering to put us up in a hotel."  
  
"I am." Their eyes met again. "There's no strings attached, no pressure. I just want to do this for you and help you get through the day. Moral support."  
  
Sören nodded. Even though it felt ridiculous, he wasn't going to argue. They drove back to Sören's apartment building, and Alejandro accompanied him up the stairs to the second floor. Margrét was checking her e-mail, and she gave her brother a curious look, then her jaw dropped slightly when she saw Alejandro.  
  
_My god._  Margrét spoke directly into Sören's mind.  _If that isn't sex on legs, I don't know what is._  
  
_Will you shut it._  "Margrét, this is Alejandro. Alejandro, this is my sister Margrét."  
  
Margrét got up, and Alejandro tried to mask his surprise at seeing a woman almost as tall as he was. He took her hand and kissed it, and Margrét laughed.  
  
"So, you're back soon...?" Margrét gave Sören another curious look.  
  
"Jæja, I'm here to, uh, pack an overnight bag."  
  
Margrét raised an eyebrow and smirked. "I see."  
  
_No, you don't fucking see._  
  
Margrét tried not to snicker. Alejandro kept a poker face, and Sören felt like he could die of embarrassment. He quickly ran into his room and packed pajamas and a change of clothes, while he heard Margrét offering Alejandro coffee, who politely refused.  
  
On the away out, Margrét said, "Have fun, you crazy kids."  
  
Sören waved. "You too."  
  
Margrét snorted. "As if, I have to work tonight."  
  
The flight to Akureyri was uneventful, but once they landed, Sören felt overcome by emotion. He hadn't been back to his hometown in years, and a part of him always missed it.  
  
They stopped at a car rental, and then drove to Hotel Akureyri. When Alejandro went to the booking desk, and the receptionist asked if they were getting one or two rooms, Alejandro turned to Sören and said, "That's up to you."  
  
Sören took a deep breath and rubbed his face, feeling awkward again. "Er." He pinched the bridge of his nose.  
  
"Like I told you, no strings."  
  
"One, just to keep expenses down."  
  
The receptionist heard and nodded, and Sören facepalmed.  _What am I getting myself into._  
  
Alejandro took Sören to buy flowers, and told him to pick out whatever he wanted. Sören settled on a simple bouquet of white roses, and Alejandro drove him in the rental to the graveyard at Naustahofdi, situated on a hill. They walked into the graveyard solemnly, and Sören led him to the two graves.  
  
_Sigurd Tollasson, 1957-1986  
Brynhildur Jónsdóttir 1960-1990_  
  
Their graves had been empty in some time - neglected, forgotten. Just that alone made Sören want to cry, but he couldn't do it. He dropped to his knees, kissed his fingertips, and pressed them against his mother's grave before laying the bouquet of white roses down.  
  
He closed his eyes, and remembered. Feeling. He was there for awhile, lost in memory, the only thing his mother had left him. Though he had only known her for a few short years, he still missed her terribly, and wondered how life would be different if she'd lived.  
  
When he got up, Alejandro was there, and for a moment they just looked at each other. Sören wondered if Alejandro was going to give him a hug, but he hesitated - Sören could  _feel_  the hesitation, the cautiousness - and then he took Sören by the hand out of the graveyard.  
  
For the next hour Sören took Alejandro on the unofficial tour, showing him the neighborhoods where he grew up, the schools he went to. Then they visited Lystigarðurinn, the famous botanical garden, and the way Alejandro's face lit up among all the different kinds of flowers made Sören feel a bit better.  
  
It was there that Alejandro went to fetch his guitar and notebook, and Sören drew as he sang and played, writing another new song. Sören found, after a little while, that he was drawing his mother, and realized Alejandro was writing a song about her, and grief, and memories.  
  
He showed Alejandro the drawing after that, and instead of accepting it as he always did, Alejandro said, "Keep it."  
  
"You don't like it?"  
  
"I love it. And you should keep it." Alejandro gave Sören a stern look. "You don't have any pictures of your mother, do you?"  
  
Sören deeply exhaled, and shook his head. "No."  _How did you know that._  
  
"Keep it."  
  
Sören felt that urge to cry again, and still couldn't let it out. He nodded, and Alejandro patted him.  
  
They went for a late dinner, opting for fish and chips. As they ate, Alejandro broke the silence that had settled over them again. "Who raised you, with your mother gone so young? Your father?"  
  
Sören shook his head. "My father died when I was two."  
  
Alejandro winced.  
  
"His sister raised us. She. Uh." Sören took a sip of his ginger ale, neither wanting to dance around the issue nor overload this man with too much information that would make him decide he had too many issues. "She was an alcoholic, married to another alcoholic. She was not kind to me, my siblings, or my cousin."  
  
"That's unfortunate."  
  
"My twin brother Dagnýr and I threw ourselves into school to cope. Ridiculous overachievers, we were. He got accepted to Oxford, he earned a Ph.D. quite young. He's an astrophysicist, and a professor now. His doctoral advisor was one of Stephen Hawking's doctoral students. And like I told you before, I went to med school but I couldn't handle it."  
  
"I hear medical school has a steep learning curve."  
  
"It wasn't the classes, it was the internship." Sören sipped his ginger ale again, feeling slight disbelief that his tongue was loosening like this. "I couldn't handle people dying. I'd gotten into medicine because of my mother's death, and then seeing death again..."  
  
"...It triggered you."  
  
"Yes. It did." Sören sat up in his chair, looking away, but when he met Alejandro's eyes again there was only compassion there.  
  
"I know what it's like to see death," Alejandro said. "And to lose family."  
  
"You've lost family members?"  
  
"Most of my family is gone." Alejandro gave a sad smile.  
  
That awkward pause, with Sören not knowing what to say, desperately wanting to hold him. As painful as Sören's life had been, his sister, brother and cousin were all still alive. Dagnýr was on another continent, but still came to visit around the holidays, at least.  _Fuck._  
  
"Well..." Sören raised what was left of his glass. "Here we are. Alive."  
  
"To life." Alejandro clinked glasses with him - his own had wine. He drained the rest of it, holding Sören's gaze the entire time.  
  
Back at the hotel, Sören changed right away into pajamas. They weren't the sexiest thing in the world, but even if Alejandro had something in mind with being open to only getting one room - and Sören still had no idea - he felt leaden from grief, and not in the mood for sex.  
  
Alejandro was in a pair of black silk pajamas which were more flattering, but he was reading on the bed as Sören approached, not exactly a come-hither pose.  
  
"I... uh." Sören looked down.  
  
"I know." Alejandro nodded. He patted the space beside him. "Come, rest."  
  
Sören climbed on the bed, and Alejandro turned out the lights, keeping a small lamp on to continue reading. Sören tried to relax enough to fall asleep, but he was too tense, and after tossing and turning for awhile, trying and failing to get comfortable, Alejandro at last put his book down, turned off the lamp, and said, simply, "Here."  
  
He wrapped his arms around Sören, cradling him, petting his curls, and it was then that the dam broke and Sören fell apart, crying on him. Alejandro began to rock him, still petting him.  
  
Sören felt self-conscious about crying, feeling like he was making a fool of himself, worrying that Alejandro was somehow just politely tolerating this and wouldn't want to see him again. Sören knew that was probably a stupid thought, but he'd been shamed for crying by his aunt Katrín, who would beat him for crying.  _Boys don't cry. Be a man._  
  
Sören sniffled and cried harder, answering those memories in his mind.  _I do cry. I am human. If you wound me, I bleed._  
  
"It's all right." Alejandro's arms tightened, almost as if he sensed Sören's shame. "Let it out. Let it all out."  
  
Sören cried and cried, until he was all cried out, exhausted. Alejandro continued holding him, and Sören listened to the rhythm of his heartbeat. At last sleep carried him away.  
  
Alejandro woke Sören up - they had agreed to take an early morning flight because Sören had to work. After Sören showered and changed, they went to the airport, Alejandro returned the car, and they had breakfast. Over breakfast Sören finally spoke. "Thank you for last night."  
  
"You're welcome." Alejandro nodded. "I hope it helped."  
  
After the flight back to Reykjavik, Alejandro drove Sören home, and Sören sat in the car for a minute once they were parked outside the apartment building.  
  
"You'll be at the show on Friday, yes?" Alejandro asked.  
  
"Of course." Sören smiled.  
  
"You work again this weekend?"  
  
"I have Sunday off."  
  
"Would you like to get together...?"  
  
"Yes. But we can discuss details on Friday after the show?"  
  
"Sounds like a plan."  
  
Sören didn't want to go to work, but he did, and when he came home, Margrét was up, and teased him. "How was your hot date last night?" she asked.  
  
"Nothing happened."  
  
"What."  
  
"You heard me." Sören nodded. "No sex. I was up there to grieve, not bone."  
  
"Aw, he didn't do the 'making the moves while you were vulnerable' routine? How noble of him."  
  
"Actually," Sören said, "that was refreshing, considering a couple of the sleazy guys I've been with."  
  
"I won't argue that."  
  
When Sören checked his e-mail, he had one from Alejandro. It was a lolcat, captioned "Iz it can be hugs tiem nao?" and Alejandro wrote underneath it:  _Thinking of you. Hoping you got through today OK._  
  
Sören started to cry again. It felt stupid, crying over a lolcat, but it was a sweet gesture. The kind he wasn't used to.  
  
He wondered if Alejandro maybe wasn't used to it, either, thinking about that terrible lonely  _ache_  he'd sensed from him.  
  
  
_  
  
After Alejandro's show on Friday, they made plans for Sunday late afternoon, early evening. They saw the new  _Star Trek_  movie together - the theatre was crowded, which was anxiety-inducing for both of them, but they managed to enjoy themselves. After the movie they had dinner together, eating Icelandic lamb.  
  
"That was a good movie," Sören said.  
  
"It was."  
  
Sören smirked. "I usually ship Kirk and Spock, but seeing Spock with Uhura was pretty all right."  
  
"Ah, you're a shipper."  
  
"I am, but not as bad as some." Sören rolled his eyes. "You've met my sister, but one of these days I should introduce you to my cousin Ari. He writes  _fanfic._ "  
  
"Oh, does he? What kind?"  
  
"Tolkien."  
  
Alejandro almost choked on his drink. "Ah," was all he said when he recovered.  
  
"I know, right? That is some next level nerd shit." Sören did an imitation of Gollum. " _Hobbitses, we writes them precious, yesss._ "  
  
Alejandro changed the subject back to the movie they'd just seen. "I must admit, I never even considered the idea of Kirk and Spock together."  
  
Sören was quiet, considering. And then he saw his opportunity to settle the confusion once and for all. "Alejandro," he said, suddenly serious. "You've asked me some questions about myself, but... I need to ask this."  
  
Alejandro said nothing, but his eyes prompted Sören to go on.  
  
"You know I'm gay," Sören said. "We shared a bed together and nothing happened. You don't seem freaked out by it like a lot of straight guys are, and you didn't try to jump my bones like a lot of gay guys would have. And this has been a few times we've been spending time together so I've got to ask... what are you?"  
  
Alejandro waited a moment to answer - Sören could feel him considering, and as the moment wore on, his tension grew. Finally Alejandro replied, "I'm complicated."  
  
"So you're bi."  
  
Alejandro took another long moment to respond. "I don't like labels."  
  
"OK. But you're not straight."  
  
Alejandro leaned back in his chair. For a moment Sören wondered if he was going to leave - if he'd overstepped bounds and things were weird now. But then Alejandro said, "I grew up with the belief that being attracted to someone of the same gender was a sin. That you would go to Hell. Be damned."  
  
"Ugh, já." Sören nodded. "My aunt turned into a Bible-thumper when she quit drinking. And you're Brazilian, right? Super Catholic?"  
  
"My culture isn't very, ah... gay-friendly I suppose is the word for it." Alejandro frowned.  
  
"But you're not straight."  
  
"I am not entirely straight, no. I have had experience with men." Alejandro looked away, and Sören could feel a flash of self-consciousness from him, which was surprising. "But not in some time."  
  
"Are you single?"  
  
"Very much so. As I said, it's... been awhile."  
  
"That's... wow. You're hot, talented..."  
  
"All that glitters is not gold," Alejandro said.  
  
"Well..."  _Here goes nothing, sink or swim._  "I think you're pretty shiny."  
  
Their eyes met again. Sören's face flushed, his heart started racing, aware of the gravity of what he just said. _Wow, I hope I didn't fuck this up..._  
  
"You're shiny too." Alejandro laughed. "I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a spark there."  
  
"That's a relief." Sören laughed too. "Usually I can tell with people, but I haven't been able to figure you out, and I've been worried -"  
  
Alejandro shook his head. "It's not a lack of attraction. It's a lack of..." Alejandro looked like he was searching for the word in English. "Freedom, I guess you could say."  
  
"But you're single."  
  
"I told you... I'm complicated."  
  
Sören frowned. Alejandro also frowned slightly.  
  
When the waiter came near their table, Sören called out, "Check, please." And then he said, against his better judgment, knowing this was going to hit him hard in a week, "Two separate checks."  
  
Alejandro's eyebrows shot up. Sören got up and quickly explained, "Look, I like you, and I get it that you have this... Catholic guilt or whatever it is... but I don't like people playing games with me. So call me when you figure your shit out."  
  
Sören took a cab home, and spent an hour crying into his pillow. Then he was interrupted by his cell phone going off. It was Alejandro.  
  
"Please tell me you made it home safely."  
  
"...I did, yes."  
  
Alejandro sighed. "Sören. Come to the show on Friday."  
  
"That isn't you figuring your shit out."  
  
"Yes, it is. Come to the fucking show."  
  
Sören had never heard Alejandro swear before, and hearing the f-bomb from the polite, genteel Brazilian floored him. After a minute, when Sören found his words again, he said, "Fine."  
  
" _Obrigado._ "  
  
_  
  
Sören showed up with his usual art supplies, and as Alejandro sang and played through his usual songs, this time Sören painted storms and fire, rather than the ethereal, luminous visions of shining paradise.  
  
Towards the end of his set Alejandro said, "I normally don't do cover songs, but tonight I felt it was right to cover this. It's called 'Like A Tattoo', by Sade."  
  
The song was haunting enough when Sade performed it, but as Alejandro worked through it, it took on a whole new tinge of sorrow, one that brought tears to Sören's eyes.  
  
_I remember his hands  
And the way the mountains looked  
The light shot diamonds from his eyes  
Hungry for life  
And thirsty for the distant river  
  
Like the scar of age  
Written all over my face  
The war is still raging inside of me  
I still feel the chill  
As I reveal my shame to you  
I wear it like a tattoo_  
  
Chills went down Sören's spine, and the tears silently flowed.   
  
There was a man in the flames, forging jewels that looked like diamonds, but so much more. There was fire in his eyes, and a storm swirled around the fire. There were jewels scattered on the ground, and blood running underneath them. As the song came to a close, Sören thought of Alejandro's scarred hand, and the pain too frequently in his eyes, and wondered what kind of war he'd been in.  
  
Sören gave Alejandro the painting, as he always did, and Alejandro looked ready to break down in tears. He controlled himself - barely.  
  
"Let's go somewhere and talk," Alejandro said.  
  
They sat outside, and for a few minutes just sat there, breathing the air, looking up at the night sky.  
  
"We're two intense people," Alejandro said, finally. "And that worries me."  
  
"You think I'm gonna go psycho on you? Because I told you I had a breakdown in med school...?"  
  
"It's not quite that." Sören watched Alejandro struggle for words. "There's a fire in you. The same kind of fire my father had. I'm drawn to people like that. But..."  
  
"But what?"  
  
"I keep telling you I'm complicated. There are reasons why I've been alone as long as I have. There are reasons why I haven't pursued a record deal. There are so many, too many reasons, why I live the kind of life that I do. And letting you in would change a lot, the way that fire transforms things. Purifies, refines things."  
  
Sören frowned. "That's the weirdest  _it's not you, it's me_  speech I've ever heard."  
  
"I didn't say that."  
  
"You didn't need to say it." Sören pointed to the coffeehouse. "I get it that whatever made you sing  _that_ , in there, was hell. I  _know_  that trauma doesn't heal overnight. But if you don't want to be with me, fine. Just... stop sending me mixed signals. Don't fucking  _play_  with me."  
  
"I'm not play-"  
  
"I need honesty. I need you to be real with me. I've had too many men lie, cheat. I'm tired of that. Just fucking don't play games with me. You're complicated, I understand that. But at some point we need to define what's happening here, or at least I do."  
  
Alejandro's jaw set. "I'll take you home."  
  
They didn't speak on the way there, and they said nothing when Sören exited the car. Sören was pretty sure, after that, he'd never see Alejandro again.  
  
Sunday afternoon came. They'd never made plans. Sören moped around the apartment, in his pajamas all day, and Margrét got the hint to not bother him about it.  
  
Then, as Sören was watching a sad chick flick on TV, he heard acoustic guitar music out the window. "What the..." He came to the window and saw Alejandro sitting there, on his car, playing. "The fuck you doing, mate," Sören called out the window.  
  
Alejandro didn't look up, and Sören recognized the chords for the guitar part of "Girl From Ipanema". But then Alejandro sang  
  
_Tall and dark and young and lovely, the boy from Akureyri goes walking  
And when he passes, each one he passes goes - ah  
When he walks, he's like a samba that swings so cool and sways so gentle  
That when he passes, each one he passes goes - ah  
But I watch him so sadly, how can I tell him I love him  
Yes I would give my heart gladly,  
But each day, when he walks to the sea  
He looks straight ahead, not at me  
Tall, and dark and young and lovely, the boy from Akureyri goes walking  
And when he passes, I smile - but he doesn't see (doesn't see)  
(He just doesn't see, he never sees me...)_  
  
Sören threw on clothes and rushed outside. Alejandro was packing up the guitar in his car, in seeming resignation, and Sören threw his arms around him and kissed him hard.  
  
Alejando's mouth opened, letting him inside, and as their tongues swirled they both groaned into the kiss. Sören found himself stroking Alejandro's long dark hair, kissing him harder, and Alejandro kissed back for all he was worth, like a man starving for it. Alejandro trailed kisses along his jaw, playfully licked the beard, nuzzled it, before claiming his mouth again.  
  
And then Sören picked up through his empathy that Alejandro was, in fact, touch starved. He didn't know quite how long Alejandro had been celibate, but it  _felt_  like a  _long_  time. There was a hunger there, a  _fever_. Wild, primal need, finally unleashed.  
  
For the first time, Alejandro drove them to his own apartment, which was in a more upscale part of Reykjavik. As soon as they got in the door they started kissing again, and Alejandro led them to his bedroom. He peeled off Sören's Joy Division T-shirt, and traced the sleeve tattoos on Sören's bare arms - flames on one arm, ocean waves on the other. He ran his hands over Sören's bare chest, taking a moment to linger on the nipples, playing with the rings in them. Sören growled into Alejandro's neck and nibbled, fumbling with his belt.  
  
They undressed each other, and their clothing pooled in a haphazard heap on the floor. For a moment Alejandro looked at it - Sören could tell from a cursory glance around the apartment that Alejandro was fastidious - and then Alejandro pounced on him.  
  
Skin met skin. Sören wrapped his arms and legs around Alejandro, kissing him as their hard cocks rubbed together. They were both already leaking precum, and feeling mischievous, Sören collected some of his precum on his fingers and brought it to Alejandro's lips to taste. The sight of Alejandro licking and sucking the precum off his fingers made Sören's cock throb and his balls tighten.  
  
"I want you," Sören husked, before kissing him again.  
  
"I need you," Alejandro confessed. The sadness in his eyes brought tears to Sören's own, and Alejandro gave him a sweet, gentle kiss.  
  
Sören rolled Alejandro onto his back. "Do you have protection?"  
  
He nodded. "And lube. It's in the drawer."  
  
Sören had to stop himself from using his mind to open the drawer and pull them out. He reached to retrieve the packet of condoms and the tube of lube, placing it on the bed next to him. Then he took Alejandro's face between his hands and kissed him deeply.  
  
"How do you want it?" Sören asked.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
They laughed together, and then Alejandro ran his hands over Sören's body, before taking Sören's cock into his fist; his thumb hooked through the captive bead ring of Sören's piercing, in the head. "That... looks interesting," Alejandro told him.  
  
"It's a Prince Albert."  
  
"I know what it is. I just, ah."  
  
"Never felt one?" Sören smirked. "There's a reason why guys get it done. Extra stimulation for their partner."  
  
"I... see." Alejandro gave him a wicked grin, and then he moaned when Sören kissed his neck.  
  
"You can do more than see," Sören whispered. "You can feel. Inside you."  
  
"Are you a top?"  
  
"I'm versatile."  
  
Alejandro grinned again. "Good."  
  
"Let me take care of you." Sören stroked his face, and then, lovingly, stroked the scarring on Alejandro's hand. His fingers trailed down to scarring on Alejandro's shoulder and thigh, what he gathered were more war wounds. He brought Alejandro's hand to his lips, kissed the scars, and Alejandro finally let it out, weeping softly. Sören leaned in to kiss his tears and Alejandro broke, sobbing. Sören continued kissing his tears, stroking his hair, with the scarred hand resting in his, over his heart. "I've got you," Sören said. "Let me love you. Let us dance in the dark, together, with our own sacred fire."  
  
Alejandro kissed him like Sören had never been kissed before in his life, and Sören kissed him back, his own hunger intensifying to fever pitch. He resumed kissing Alejandro's neck, then down to the nipples, teasing them with his tongue, sucking hard, nibbling on them, licking fast and slow, making Alejandro arch to him, panting, grabbing Sören's curls.  
  
Sören was nowhere near done. He kissed and licked Alejandro's chiseled, muscular stomach, down one thigh and up to the hip, back over the stomach, down the other thigh. He gave a few long, slow licks from the head down the shaft of Alejandro's cock, before taking it in his mouth, their eyes locked. Sören sucked slowly, teasing him, and when he worked a slick finger inside him, finding the sweet spot right away, at the sounds Alejandro made, Sören almost came just from that. Sören had never so badly wanted to thoroughly wreck someone, to please the way he was pleasing Alejandro now.  
  
Sören's other hand gently played with the balls. Sören worked his tongue as he sucked, and despite his best efforts to tease and keep the buildup slow, it had been long enough for Alejandro that he didn't last longer than a few minutes, crying out as he emptied into Sören's mouth, who drank him greedily, savoring the sweet taste.  
  
Sören came up to kiss him, and gave him a little while to recharge. A few minutes of Sören's hard cock rubbing against his thigh was all it took, and Alejandro was hard again. Sören stuck two fingers inside him now, kissing him again and again, the fingers of his free hand playing over the length of Alejandro's body, which was nearly hairless save the dark bush.  
  
"Please," Alejandro begged.  
  
"Hush, we'll get there." Sören grinned and nibbled his lower lip. "I know it's been awhile for you. I don't want to hurt you."  
  
"Maybe I want you to hurt me. Maybe I like it rough."  
  
"Maybe you do. And maybe I don't want to play rough our first time." Sören kissed his neck, and then he said softly, "There are ways to torment you without playing rough, my sweet."  
  
With that, Sören's head was back between his legs. He dipped his tongue in Alejandro's channel. He had reasonable expectation that Alejandro would be clean enough for this, but he was surprised by how clean Alejandro tasted, the almost sweet taste of him there. Sören worked his tongue agonizingly slowly, teasing the prostate, making Alejandro writhe and whimper, grabbing Sören's curls, begging, pleading to be taken. And Sören continued eating him, licking and licking and licking until his jaw got tired and Alejandro's cock was completely slick with precum. Sören moved his head to lick another trail of precum oozing down the shaft, making a show of collecting it with his tongue, and sucked a little on the head before coming up to kiss him.  
  
Sören's fingers were back inside him, three this time. He worked his fingers slowly, feeling the tightness, and then Alejandro was working his hips, fucking his fingers. Sören's cock was raging now, and it took Sören every ounce of restraint he had to not pound Alejandro into the mattress right then. Instead, he simply rolled on a condom, and squirted lube over it, using his hand to slick it, before squirting lube directly into Alejandro's ass.  
  
"You still want it?" Sören asked.  
  
"Hells, yes."  
  
Sören kissed him deeply and began to push inside him, slowly. He felt Alejandro pushing out, watched him breathe; Sören could sense the twinge of pain, but Alejandro wanted it, and kept bearing down until he was all the way in. Then they kissed again.  
  
Sören fucked him excruciatingly slowly, teasing both of them into anguish. Alejandro clung to him, nails in Sören's back, as Sören caressed every inch of exposed flesh he could reach between their bodies, kissed Alejandro's neck, claimed his mouth. When Sören could no longer hold back he propped Alejandro's legs on his shoulders and drove into him hard. Alejandro's hips rocked back at Sören, matching his rhythm, fucking Sören's cock. "Yes yes yes  _yes_ , more, harder..."  
  
"Fuck, you feel good," Sören panted. He loved watching Alejandro lose control like this, driven wild with lust and sensation.  
  
"You feel good." Alejandro ran his hands over Sören's chest, and started playing with the nipple rings again. "So right."  
  
"This is right." Sören drove into him. "There is no sin. No shame. This is as natural as the sun's rise and set. Like the pull of the tides."  
  
Alejandro leaned up and claimed a nipple with his mouth. Sören cried out and fucked him harder. Alejandro moaned, working his clever tongue to tease the nipple into an erect peak before gently tugging the ring with his teeth, then suckling. Sören stroked his hair, cradling him. "Fuck..."  
  
Alejandro gave him an adoring look before licking the other nipple, and the smouldering look on his face as his tongue played made Sören fight his orgasm. He slowed down, and Alejandro whined with frustration, before Sören kissed him roughly.  
  
They sank back together, and Sören continued fucking him slowly, but his hand was on Alejandro's cock now, stroking it in time with his thrusts. Sören's free hand pet Alejandro's hair and face. "You're beautiful," Sören told him.  
  
"So are you."  
  
They kissed, and Alejandro wrapped his arms around Sören, holding him tight.  
  
"No shame," Sören told him. "Just us. As we are."  
  
They kissed again, and Sören sped up, not as hard and fast as before, but enough to get them back to that edge of climax and keep them there, building and building. When Alejandro's nails dug into his back again, and there was fire in those silver eyes, Sören knew even before Alejandro ground out, "Sören, I'm going to -"  
  
"Yes. Come for me."  
  
Alejandro cried out, shooting his seed over Sören's chest and stomach. Two thrusts later Sören let go, shuddering, gasping for breath as his own orgasm overtook him, like being swallowed up by the sea. Their foreheads touched, breathing each other's breath, and there was just light, brilliant, blinding, as the pleasure throbbed and throbbed, seemingly endless.  
  
Sören came to laying on Alejandro's chest, with Alejandro stroking his curls, singing softly.  
  
"How long have I been out?" Sören asked.  
  
"Awhile." Alejandro smiled.  
  
"Shit." Sören laughed. He'd gone soft, but was still inside Alejandro, and pulled out slowly. He pulled the condom off, and laughed at it. "Wow, that's a lot of cum."  
  
"Pity it wasn't inside me."  
  
"Mmm, yes. Well, we'd have to get tested for that."  
  
Alejandro nodded.  
  
Sören kissed him again. "So... are you still going to give me the 'I don't like labels' routine? Is this a thing now?"  
  
"This is a thing now," Alejandro confirmed.  
  
Sören nodded. "Good."  
  
But before he could snuggle back in Alejandro's chest, there was a serious, almost stern look on Alejandro's face, and Sören paused. "What is it," he asked.  
  
"This isn't guilt," Alejandro said, "but you need to understand... we have to keep things discrete."  
  
"Discrete as in how, exactly."  
  
"I can't be out like you are. Even though I perform music, yes, I live a deliberately quiet life. I try to not court... certain types of attention. I want to be with you, but I need you to know that I can't list you on Facebook as my boyfriend. That sort of thing."  
  
"Why?" Sören raised an eyebrow. "You said most of your family is dead, so why would they care -"  
  
"Not everyone is dead. And enough has happened that I just don't want trouble with the people who aren't."  
  
Sören knew he wasn't lying, but he knew he wasn't telling the full truth either - the full truth was under "it's complicated", and as much as Sören didn't want dishonesty and games, he also knew it was part of the trauma. "But we can have... a relationship?"  
  
"We can. We just have to be cautious about what the public sees."  
  
Sören didn't like it that he wasn't out, but he also knew Alejandro's background was part of the package, and he'd deal, so long as Alejandro wasn't lying  _to him._  Sören patted his face. "OK."  
  
"OK." Alejandro kissed the top of his head. "Thank you for understanding."  
  
"So..." Sören traced lazy circles over the scar on Alejandro's shoulder. "You seemed glad that I'm versatile."  
  
Alejandro rolled Sören onto his back, and Sören parted his thighs, kissing deep, losing himself in the rush of passion.


	3. A Sort of Homecoming

**A Sort of Homecoming**

 

 **2009**  
  
It was Saturday, June 20th, the night before the summer solstice. Sören still worked his job as a waiter and had to work most weekends, but Alejandro had requested he get the weekend off, to spend with him. They had been together just over a month, and had recently gotten test results back that confirmed they were both disease-free. Sören had always played it safe since he was sexually active, refusing to top without a condom or be penetrated without his partner wearing one. He was cautious due to his medical background, and still wanted to test again in six months to be absolutely sure. But for now... they both felt ready to bareback; it would be Sören's first time with it.  
  
They were going to a more upscale restaurant first, so Sören got as close as he came to dressing up, in a long-sleeved white button-down T-shirt, grey tie, and a grey waistcoat, with black trousers. He tamed his curls with gel, and applied a few drops of Kyoto by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, which had a very sexual scent on him when it dried. However, he still wore his usual black Doc Martens boots rather than dress shoes. That was who he was.  
  
As Sören got ready, he felt that giddy rush he always felt before he saw Alejandro, but it was more intense this time. He was already semi-hard thinking about the two of them taking turns inside each other, bare, coming inside each other for the first time. But he also knew that it was an important step in their relationship - a sign of commitment...  
  
...of trust.  
  
There was still so much he didn't know about Alejandro. He never talked about his family, or his life prior to coming to Reykjavik. Sören still had no idea where Alejandro's money came from. Their relationship was lived very much in the  _now_ , the little moments of going places and doing things, or just cuddling together while listening to music or watching TV. Alejandro particularly liked taking them on drives to places where they could be in nature somehow. They enjoyed each other's company, and that was good enough for Sören - he understood from the pain he sensed in Alejandro, and from his own experience with pain, that it was hard to talk about things. He knew it was a big deal for Alejandro to allow anyone this close to him.  
  
Sören came out of the bathroom. Margrét and her best friend Ben were in the kitchen, getting snacks to take out in the living room. Ben had moved from the UK a few months ago, the son of the famous entrepreneur, the half-Danish half-Japanese Hans Sulu. Ben was living on his Daddy's money, trying to start a darkwave band. Margrét played bass and had a keyboard, and Ben was there to sing. Sören got the distinct impression that Ben had a crush on her, but Margrét just thought of him as like a little brother to her. Ben was tall but shorter than Margrét, lanky, pale, and awkward-looking, with shoulder-length black hair, big ears, a big nose, a clean-shaven face full of beauty marks, and his dark eyes stared a lot to the point of being somewhat creepy. He always dressed up in a long black cowl tunic with a hood, over black bondage pants, even on summer days like today. He also had a deep, quiet voice that was unsettling, though Sören had heard him scream lyrics over Margrét's music and knew he had a set of pipes that could peel paint off walls.  
  
"Hello, Sören," Ben said.  
  
"Hello, Ben." Sören nodded, taking out a water bottle from the fridge. "How's life treating you?"  
  
"Life. Don't talk to me about life."  
  
"Right," Sören said, turning to Margrét, who rolled her eyes. "So do I look all right?"  
  
"You look very nice," Margrét said, nodding with approval. "I don't ever see you wearing a tie. You must  _really_ like this guy."  
  
"Oh, it's more than like. I'm in love with him," Sören said.  
  
"When's the wedding?"  
  
"Fuck you."  
  
Ben snorted. "You guys are as bad as me and my twin brother Matt."  
  
"Oh shit, there's two of you?" Sören gave a mock shudder. "That's a scary thought."  
  
"We're nothing alike. He's a radar technician. He dyes his hair platinum blonde and wears thick nerdy glasses. He likes  _Britney Spears._ "  
  
" _I_  like Britney Spears, you twat," Margrét said.  
  
"No, you  _ogle_  Britney Spears. There's a difference."  
  
Margrét gave her best innocent face, which was enough like Sören's innocent face that he didn't buy it at all, and Sören snickered. Then he asked, "How's the band coming along? Have you guys come up with a name yet?"  
  
"We haven't quite," Margrét said. "This dork over here wants Something Nights, or the Nights of Something."  
  
"Knights, with a K." Ben shot her an annoyed look. "And yes, we're trying to figure out what we are knights of."  
  
Sören couldn't resist. "The Knights Who Say 'Ni!'"  
  
"Don't you have somewhere to go?" Ben glared at Sören.  
  
"Not for a few min-" As if on cue, Sören's cell phone went off. " _Hej, elskan._ "  
  
" _Olá, querido._  I'm turning onto your street right now."  
  
"I'll go meet you outside." Sören took a deep breath and then ran in his room to get the overnight bag he'd packed. When he came out, Margrét and Ben were assembling in the living room. Margrét gave Sören a hug by the door.  
  
"Stay safe," she told him, her usual caution.  
  
Sören nodded. "I'll try." He smirked. "If a mushroom cloud goes off on the other side of town, well -"  
  
"TMI," Margrét said.  
  
Sören cackled. "You know I have to take the piss out of you. It's the law."  
  
"Já, já, get out of here." Margrét clapped him on the back.  
  
Sören rushed downstairs and out to Alejandro's sleek black Jaguar. He was dressed in a black and blue version of Sören's outfit. Sören had half-expected Alejandro to tie his hair back, but he never did, it was all hanging loose.  
  
"No ponytail for the fancy restaurant?" Sören inquired as he got in the car.  
  
"No." Alejandro looked amused by that suggestion. "I don't like my hair that way."  
  
"Good. I like your hair down." Sören leaned in and gave him a quick kiss.  
  
Then Alejandro handed him a single long-stemmed rose and kissed him back, more lingering.  
  
"You better move this car before I blow you right here and now," Sören told him, feeling himself starting to get hard.  
  
Alejandro actually  _blushed_  at that. He was so hard to read at times, compared to just about everyone else Sören encountered, but he could sense Alejandro's mind going places, and he gave a little smug smile as Alejandro started driving.  
  
He drove in the direction of Reykjavik where he had an apartment, and a few blocks away from where he lived, there was a newer restaurant that served a fusion of Icelandic and French cuisine. The menu prices made Sören immediately self-conscious, even though Alejandro was paying and indeed said "Get whatever you want," as Sören looked it over. But Sören also felt self-conscious for another reason:  
  
"I've never... eaten... French food."  
  
"I see."  
  
"Should I just get what you're having? I trust your judgment that you won't get something awful."  
  
Alejandro gave a small, mischievous smile. "And here I was thinking the lamb testicles sounded good..."  
  
"Oh my fucking  _god._ " A waiter immediately shot Sören a look, and Sören's face burned even more, but Alejandro just laughed and patted him.  
  
"No, there's no lamb testicles on the menu," Alejandro said. "...Yet."  
  
"Does French cuisine seriously have...?"  
  
" _Animelles._ " Alejandro nodded. "Though the times I've been to France, I haven't tried that particular delicacy."  
  
"Oh, you've... been to France." Sören wasn't entirely surprised by this, considering Alejandro had traveled all the way from Brazil and had, evidenced by his Facebook profile, spent at least some time in the UK, it made sense he would have seen other places. Sören felt even more like a backwater hick, and said, "I've never left Iceland."  
  
"We shall have to remedy that one of these days."  
  
The thought of going traveling with Alejandro made Sören feel giddy again, giddier still when Alejandro squeezed his hand.  
  
They had a  _baccala provincial_  - salted cod with tomatoes, capers, olives, and potatoes - and Sören enjoyed it. They shared a mazarin cake for dessert, with Alejandro feeding him bites from a fork.  
  
It was a short drive back to Alejandro's apartment, and Sören felt nervous and excited as they approached. In the elevator, they were alone, and immediately began kissing and groping like a pair of horny teenagers. By the time they got in the door, Alejandro was already removing Sören's tie and unbuttoning his waistcoat.  
  
But then Alejandro slowed down, maddeningly. "Let's have some wine," he said.  
  
He put the rose for Sören in a vase, retrieved a bottle of chilled white Moscato wine from the fridge, and opened it in front of Sören, inviting him to sniff the cork. He poured each of them a glass, and then he began to light candles around the apartment, and put on music. Sören recognized Black Tape For A Blue Girl, which was a melancholy choice for a night like this, but then, that was Alejandro. Alejandro sat down next to him on the expensive leather couch, and they looked into each other's eyes as they had their first sip of wine.  
  
"I've been thinking about this all day," Sören said finally. "Thinking about you all day. Wanting this. Wanting you."  
  
Alejandro cupped Sören's chin, stroking the beard, and pulled him close. "I'm yours," he said, before taking Sören's mouth in a deep kiss.  
  
Sören was starting to go out of his mind with lust. He reached to undo Alejandro's tie, and unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat with shaking hands. Alejandro's hands covered his, and then his mouth grazed Sören's jaw, kissing and licking Sören's sensitive neck. He began to unbutton Sören's shirt, kissing and licking each inch of exposed flesh. Sören moaned, leaning back on the couch, arching to him, feeling ready to die of sexual need.  
  
Soon Alejandro was on his knees in front of Sören, taking Sören's hard cock into his mouth, their eyes locked. His usually cool silvery-grey eyes were hot now, hotter when Sören couldn't help but thrust into his mouth, grabbing his hair. Alejandro bobbed his head, rubbing his tongue as he sucked hard, sucking Sören with more enthusiasm and passion than Sören had ever received from anyone.  
  
Then Alejandro stopped, and just licked Sören's cock, from head to root and back again, following the veins, paying special attention to the prominent frenulum. Sören whimpered, and Alejandro laughed at him, licking even more slowly and deliberately. He lapped Sören's precum, and when his tongue played with Sören's foreskin, Sören let out a wrenching cry, almost sobbing with the tension building, desperate for release.  
  
Alejandro was nowhere near done. Still on his knees, he lifted his head to kiss Sören with precum on his tongue, idly taking Sören's cock into his hand and gently playing with it, thumb rubbing the frenulum. He collected precum on his fingers and stuck them in Sören's mouth, groaning as he watched Sören's full lips wrap around his fingers, sucking like he would suck a cock. He kissed, licked, and nibbled Sören's neck some more, kissing hard enough Sören knew he would leave marks there, as he had done several times now. He continued to play with Sören's cock, caressing Sören's exposed chest with his free hand. And then he collected more precum on his fingers and rubbed it onto one of Sören's nipples, bending his head to lick, teasing the exquisitely sensitive pierced nipple into a peak. He suckled, and gave the ring a little playful tug with his teeth before licking some more. He anointed the other nipple with precum and gave it the same treatment.  
  
"Alejandro.  _Now._  Please."  
  
"You,  _meu amorinho_ , are to be appreciated as a glass of fine wine, a work of art. Savored." He took a few more licks at Sören's nipples, slowly. "But we can take this into the bedroom."  
  
Alejandro took Sören's hands and pulled him from the couch to his feet, and they kissed before Alejandro took him to the bedroom. Sören smiled at the lit candles, and moaned when Alejandro kissed him again, more roughly this time, working to free Sören from his clothing. When Sören was completely nude, Alejandro stepped back, taking a moment to admire him, and then he made a "wait here" gesture and strode out to the living room. He came back with their half-full wine glasses, and the bottle of wine.  
  
Sören snatched it away from him, putting them down on the table next to the bed, and undressed Alejandro, fighting the urge to just rip his expensive clothing off. Alejandro could see the frustrated hunger in Sören's face and laughed before giving him a soft kiss. "So impatient," he said. "We have all night."  
  
When Alejandro was also naked, Sören ran his hands over him, before moving closer to kiss him, their hard cocks rubbing together. Alejandro pushed Sören onto the bed as the music changed from Black Tape For A Blue Girl to Cocteau Twins. He paused, looking into Sören's eyes, and his gaze trailed the length of Sören's body, drinking him in. Sören shivered as if he'd been touched, his face burning, wanting more. Alejandro took his face between his hands and kissed him deeply, and they both moaned as their cocks slid together again, continuing to kiss and rub their cocks together as Alejandro's fingers whispered over Sören's body. He kissed Sören's neck, and down to take a nipple into his mouth, making Sören arch and cry out.  
  
Alejandro leaned up, and grabbed one of the glasses of wine. After he took a sip and Sören took a sip, they kissed, and Sören moaned as he felt Alejandro pouring what remained in the glass over him. Alejandro chased it with his tongue and Sören grabbed the headboard, white-knuckled, aching for release that promised to stay so far away for now. Alejandro poured the other glass of wine over his nipples, chest and stomach, and licked some more. Sören grabbed his hair, writhing. "Please," he gasped. "Oh god, please..."  
  
Alejandro laughed, continuing to lap at him. "Beautiful." He nibbled Sören's navel.  
  
He poured another glass of wine, and poured some over Sören's cock, licking agonizingly slowly. Sören screamed, grabbing his hair again. Alejandro relented just a little, wrapping his mouth around the head of Sören's cock, sucking swirling his tongue. When Sören cried out again, Alejandro dipped his fingers into the wine and reached up to stick them in Sören's mouth, watching Sören suck his fingers as he sucked Sören's cock.  
  
After a few minutes he had the whole thing in his mouth, and Sören was gasping, panting, shaking, on the edge of orgasm, but Alejandro's slow sucking just kept him there. Sören whined and begged, but Alejandro was determined to make this last. When Sören was leaking more precum, Alejandro took the cock out of his mouth, poured more wine over it, and licked at it some more, before pouring wine onto Sören's balls and licking and sucking those.  
  
"Fuck.  _Fuck_..." Sören felt like he was losing his mind.  
  
Alejandro poured more wine over Sören's chest and stomach and licked at that again, paying special attention to the nipples, before coming up to kiss him. "Roll over," Alejandro said.  
  
Sören did, and shuddered when he felt the chilled wine spill down his spine. Alejandro licked and kissed up and down from his nape to the base of his spine, and then back up. His fingers traced the phoenix tattoos on Sören's back - the sleeve of fire on one arm led to a fire phoenix, and the sleeve of ocean waves on the other arm led to a water phoenix. Alejandro had seen Sören naked enough times now to be familiar with the ink, but before he could pour more wine onto Sören's back and give another round of teasing, he lingered, and Sören could feel him looking.  
  
"You designed that, didn't you?" Alejandro asked.  
  
Sören nodded. "When I was in the hospital, during my breakdown with the internship. I had someone else do the ink, but they used my design."  
  
Alejandro's fingers continued tracing the tattoos. "Symbolic."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You have scars here that the phoenixes cover up, though they're still visible."  
  
"I was beaten regularly growing up. My aunt and uncle were nasty."  
  
Alejandro sighed, and Sören could feel the ache, the surge of compassion. He kissed Sören's right shoulder and for a moment just rested his head there. His hands reached to the sleeve tattoos on Sören's arms, and Sören watched him tracing the line work there.  
  
"You have scars on your arms, too." Alejandro traced the wrists.  
  
"That..." Sören took a deep breath. "I attempted suicide. I was in med school... I knew how to slit my wrists the right way."  
  
Alejandro roughly took Sören's chin in his hand, tilting his head to face him, stroking Sören's beard, and Sören saw the pain in his eyes, the unshed tears.  
  
"My brother killed himself," Alejandro told him.  
  
"Oh,  _elskan._ " Sören pressed his forehead to Alejandro's, nuzzling him, his own eyes burning with tears now. "I'm so sorry."  
  
Alejandro let out a shuddery sigh, and nuzzled Sören back. He closed his eyes - Sören could feel him trying to shut it out. In his mind's eye he saw a flash of copper hair, long like Alejandro's. Then a brief mental movie of Alejandro and the copper-haired one laughing - they looked a great deal alike apart from hair color. Then Alejandro walking along a distant shore, alone, looking out to the sea in grief. As quickly as the vision came, it passed. Sören stroked Alejandro's cheek, and when Alejandro opened his eyes they were still shining with tears.  
  
"You," Alejandro told him, seizing his wrist with his scarred hand, tracing the scars with his thumb, " _will never do that again._ "  
  
"Well, I did get help -"  
  
"You and I both know the black dog never completely goes away."  
  
Sören nodded. He took antidepressants and had been in therapy - it helped make the depression less intense, but it wasn't entirely gone. It was as if the volume had been turned down, but it was still "on", running as background noise in his brain that sometimes distracted him.  
  
Alejandro made Sören look into his eyes. "Promise me. No matter what happens." He continued tracing the scars. "You deserve better."  
  
Sören nodded, crying a little, remembering his suicide attempt, what led to it, and the miserable weeks thereafter, in the hospital, like a helpless child again. Alejandro kissed his tears, and then he kissed Sören roughly, hard and deep. Sören groaned into the kiss, thrusting his ass against Alejandro's hips, which made Alejandro groan as well.  
  
Alejandro poured more wine over Sören's back and kissed his way down, and Sören cried out when he felt wine splash into the crack of his ass, followed by Alejandro's tongue. Soon Alejandro's tongue was inside him, feasting on him, as Sören writhed, gripping the pillows tight, screaming into them. Just before Sören could come, he gave a few last tormenting licks, then stopped and slid up, pouring more wine over Sören's neck and shoulder, kissing, licking, and nibbling the exquisitely sensitive skin there. Sören was bucking and rubbing against him now, in heat for it.  
  
Soon Alejandro's slick fingers were inside him, readying him. Sören whimpered at the feel of lube being squirted directly into his ass, and spread. "Please,  _please..._ "  
  
Alejandro wrapped his arms around Sören and pushed into him, taking him from behind. He cupped Sören's face once more, tilting his head so they could kiss as he slid inside. When he was all the way in, he broke the kiss, the two of them breathing hard, eyes burning into each other. "I love you," Sören told him.  
  
"I love you." Alejandro kissed him again, harder, and then rolled his hips back, pulling out, to slam back into him.  
  
Usually a slow and deliberate lover, Alejandro pounded into him, and Sören loved it, rocking his hips back, fucking himself on Alejandro's cock, their balls slapping together. Alejandro's left hand reached down to grip Sören's cock, while his scarred hand tenderly caressed Sören's face, sometimes tilting it back so they could kiss. They both needed this, needed to fuck the pain away, needed to feel that hunger, the heat, where this was all that mattered. In these moments Sören felt fully alive, felt his blood singing, felt the darkness chased away by pure fire.  
  
The sensation got more and more intense, until Sören was shaking from head to toe, gasping as the bed rocked against the wall. "Fuck me... fuck me..." Sören reached to grab the headboard, steadying himself as Alejandro drove into him.  
  
They were brought to the edge, and held there. A final kiss, and then Alejandro kissed Sören's neck, and his fingers brushed Sören's cock the right way as his teeth nibbled the sweet spot where the back of Sören's neck met the shoulder. " _Alejandro!_ " Sören came hard, shooting over his lover's hand and the silk sheets. Alejandro gave another few hard thrusts and cried out "Sören," collapsing onto him, pushing Sören into the pillows as Sören felt the hot cum spurting inside him. The feeling of the cum on his sensitive, throbbing prostate made Sören's orgasm that much more delicious, as did the feeling of completeness, being claimed, the evidence of their passion inside him.  
  
They lay there for awhile, holding hands, Alejandro nuzzling Sören's neck. Then he tilted Sören's face and just rubbed noses with him before a sweet, tender kiss that turned heated quickly, Alejandro hardening again. He pulled out, and rolled onto his back, with Sören climbing over him.  
  
It was Sören's turn to tease now, spilling what was left of the wine over Alejandro's naked body, licking and licking. He poured the last over Alejandro's cock and balls, and over the puckered hole. Sören licked more slowly, reveling in Alejandro's moans and sighs and the way he shivered and twitched. He could feel Alejandro's cock throbbing underneath his tongue, and smiled at the precum pooling down the shaft, before his tongue made a few slow, lazy strokes. He savored the combined taste of sweet wine and his precum, and then the musky sweetness of his wine-soaked balls, the earthy sweetness of his wine-bathed channel. Alejandro was a vocal lover, and Sören's cock ached at the noises he made; Sören found himself painfully hard, stroking again, his own precum flowing as his tongue teased Alejandro's prostate and the musical voice was almost singing in its urgent pleas for release.  
  
Sören sucked Alejandro's cock some more, and came up to kiss him, working slick fingers into his opening. Alejandro spread lube over Sören's cock, and the touch of his hand almost brought Sören off then and there, but he kept himself in check.  
  
When he pushed inside, the blood heat, the sweet velvet... Sören shuddered and his breath came out in a sharp hiss. He'd used thin condoms in the past to get as much sensation as he could, but now, not having any barrier in the way... when he was all the way in, Sören just rested there, not wanting to come too soon.  
  
He tried to keep the pace slow, but Alejandro felt too good wrapped around him, hot and tight and slick. Alejandro, in turn, responded to feeling the ring piercing in the head of Sören's cock rubbing against his prostate, the bead that much more prominent without a condom there. Sören could feel him loving it, and Alejandro begging for more just made it even hotter.  
  
When Alejandro deliberately teased him by clenching and unclenching his inner muscles that was it - Sören turned into a raging beast, fucking Alejandro fast and furious, with Alejandro's nails digging into his back, sliding down to his hips. Alejandro bucked his hips back at Sören, crying out louder and louder. Sören growled and grunted, giving into hot, needy animal mansex, caressing Alejandro's lean, muscular body as he plowed away. Sören got closer and closer, but held back, wanting Alejandro to come first. He rubbed Alejandro's nipples, pinched them, leaned down to take one between his teeth before sucking it hard. When he suckled, Alejandro threw his head back and called out Sören's name again, and Sören felt a blast of hot cum over his chest and stomach, watching it also splatter onto Alejandro's flesh. He felt Alejandro clenching around him again, pulsing, and that set Sören off, making a little whimper as he climaxed. All Sören could do was gasp and pant as the roaring pleasure flooded out of him, like an ocean wave set on fire, fire like a star going nova. He looked into those beautiful silver eyes, his entire world. "I love you," Sören ground out, sinking into Alejandro's chest, arms enfolding him.  
  
They lay there like that for a little while and then Sören gave a whine of protest when he felt Alejandro get up; he watched him snuff out the candles, before climbing back in bed.  
  
"We should change the sheets," Alejandro said.  
  
Sören nodded, and snuggled back into him.  
  
  
_  
  
They ended up falling asleep like that, entwined. In the middle of the night Sören's sleep was disturbed by feeling Alejandro thrashing around, making noises of distress, and finally Sören heard him cry out "Maitimo..."  
  
Sören shook him gently. "Alejandro," he said softly. "Alejandro, you're having a bad dream."  
  
Alejandro's eyes opened, and in the glow of the nightlight Sören could see terror on his face, like for an instant he didn't know where he was. Then he broke down crying. Sören kissed his tears, and then pulled him close, petting his hair, rocking him.  
  
When Alejandro calmed down, Sören cupped his chin and lifted his face up, to look at him.   
  
"I'm so sorry," Alejandro said.  
  
"For what?"  
  
"You having to see this."  
  
" _Elskan._  I have nightmares about my past too." Sören stroked his cheek, pet his hair some more. "I assume that's what it was?"  
  
Alejandro nodded. "It was about my brother."  
  
"Maitimo?"  
  
Alejandro looked at him, dumbfounded. For a moment he didn't say anything. Sören could read the question in his mind:  _How did you know -_? before that sort of weird shielding he had flipped back on.  
  
"You called out his name in your sleep," Sören explained. Then he kissed Alejandro's forehead and said, "That's a pretty name. That's, uh... Spanish or Portuguese, isn't it?"  
  
Alejandro gave a little laugh but otherwise said nothing and just kissed Sören, then his arms wrapped around Sören and they just held each other, rocking back to sleep.  
  
In the morning Sören was woken up by Alejandro again, this time with passionate kisses, and Alejandro kissing his neck. "I want you," Alejandro growled, and Sören felt the rock-hard erection grinding his thigh. Sören moaned and kissed him back, before Alejandro resumed kissing and licking his neck, Sören hardening in response.  
  
They made slow, languid love that Sunday morning, kissing as their cocks rubbed together, caressing each other's bodies, collecting the precum that flowed on their fingers to lick and suck, or anoint nipples with and suckle. The push and pull of their hips was like the tide, and the feelings that Sören felt as they pleased each other were as deep as the sea.  _I want to spend the rest of my life with this man._  From Alejandro's wounds he created wild beauty, like a lush garden thriving in plagued soil. And he had the tenderness of one who had been deeply hurt, a tenderness that Sören willingly gave his heart to.  
  
They came together, crying out as they watched cock coming on cock, seed flowing, painting their cocks and stomachs. They gathered some of the mess with their fingers and fed it to each other before kissing, sharing the cum between them, swallowing and savoring. Alejandro pulled Sören close and Sören was lulled by the sound of his heartbeat to near-sleep.  
  
But they didn't stay in bed all day. Alejandro took them on the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Reynisfjara, the famous black sand beach on Iceland's south coast. It was Sören's first time going there with Alejandro, who seemed pensive as he watched the waves. It was a cloudy day and not too hot, so there weren't too many people there. But Sören was glad to be there - the dark, troubled skies made the beach even more beautiful to him.  
  
Sören stripped down to his boxer-briefs and went swimming, but Alejandro just sat and played his guitar. When Sören came out of the water, Alejandro put the guitar down and Sören knelt beside him and kissed him deeply. Alejandro breathed in the scent of sea salt and Sören, and then he cupped Sören's chin in his hand and he said, "Move in with me."  
  
Sören had not lived with a man since the sugar daddy gallery owner arrangement gone bad. Indeed, part of what had killed one of Sören's past relationships was being wary of living with someone again. That created a sort of dependence he wasn't comfortable with, having learned he couldn't trust most people.  
  
But there was only love in Alejandro's eyes, and Sören picked up the feeling of skin hunger again, the way Alejandro felt at peace when Sören was in his arms, the way he ached when he went to bed alone. And something about Sören comforting him after the nightmare had been a gamechanger. Sören didn't quite know what it was - too briefly he got to feel these things, then the shield was up again.  
  
"I'll have to talk to my sister and make sure she's OK for rent," Sören said, "and... I don't expect you to take care of me. I still want to work my regular job." As much as Sören hated it, he had learned the hard way about being financially dependent on anyone, when things ended with the art gallery owner and he hadn't been working for months and suddenly had nothing. It had been a perilous few weeks of couch-surfing until Margrét was able to get a place with him.  
  
Alejandro nodded. "That's fine. But I just... need you close to me." His arms tightened around Sören, and they kissed again. They were practically alone on the beach, and, feeling bold, Sören undid Alejandro's pants and gave him a blowjob right there. Alejandro was undone quickly, and Sören got hard for him - he loved sucking cock, especially Alejandro's. Once in the car, Alejandro returned the favor, leaning over and sucking Sören to a shuddering, sobbing ejaculation before getting back on the road.  
  
That evening, Alejandro and Sören had dinner with Margrét to break the news. She took it well, saying Ben had actually been asking about moving in since Sören was gone a lot of nights as of late.  
  
"Plus," Margrét said, "he invited me to go on vacation with him to Japan later this year, for a week or so." Sensing the concern in Sören who knew about Ben's unrequited feelings, Margrét said, "No, silly, I'm still not interested in him."  
  
"Just remember, if he does ever get fresh, I can kick his arse," Sören said.  
  
Margrét laughed and patted Sören's shoulder. "You couldn't harm a fly."  
  
Sören rolled his eyes, but chuckled when Alejandro tousled his curls and kissed the top of his head. "He's a sweet, gentle boy," Alejandro said. "But there's fire in him. Remember that."  
  
_There's fire in him_  ran through Sören's head on the way back to Alejandro's apartment, and as soon as they got in the door Sören, feverish, made good on his fantasy of tearing Alejandro's clothes off, shreds of fabric on the living room floor. They bit and clawed each other as they took turns fucking each other like animals, screaming as they came.  
  
Laying in each other's arms afterwards, Alejandro made little purring noises of contentment, and the look of utter bliss on his face made Sören grin.  
  
"Better?" Sören asked.  
  
Alejandro nodded, nuzzling him. "You warm these old bones,  _meu fogo._ "  
  
"...you're not  _that_  old."  
  
Alejandro just laughed and kissed the tip of Sören's nose.  
  
  
_  
  
  
It was October now. Sören had moved in with Alejandro a few days after he asked, and they'd been living together for almost four months. Sören was the happiest he'd been in his life, his soul-sucking food service job notwithstanding.  
  
Even though Alejandro had money, Sören still insisted on paying a portion of the rent, feeling like he needed to contribute in some way. Alejandro, in turn, insisted that Sören put aside some money every week into his own savings account, wanting Sören to be taken care of in case something ever happened. But Sören didn't make a lot of money from his job, so the savings grew slowly.  
  
While Sören was at work during the day, Alejandro would do chores, run errands, and spend time working on music, sometimes taking day trips to get inspired. Sören was frequently tempted to play hooky, but knew he wouldn't have a job long if he did that.  
  
Sören came back to find Alejandro's Jaguar in the parking lot, which wasn't unusual, but what was unusual was to find Alejandro taking a nap. He looked so peaceful that Sören didn't want to disturb him, and decided to surprise him by working on making dinner, raiding the fridge and considering his options before getting started.  
  
As water boiled, Sören's cell phone went off. It was Margrét, the call he'd been waiting for - Margrét was newly returned from her trip to Japan with Ben.  
  
"Margrét! How was Japan?"  
  
"Fun. Pretty. Mostly weird." Margrét laughed. "You should have heard Ben try to speak Japanese and fail at it. He accidentally asked someone if they had any farts."  
  
Sören tried to keep his laughter down, not wanting to wake up his sleeping beauty. "I'm sure that went over  _very well._ "  
  
"Indeed it did. But even with that epic fail, Ben is totally convinced he can speak Japanese now and he's trying to come up with a concept album where every song title is in Japanese... and you remember how he wanted to call us Knights of Whatever? He finally decided what we're Knights of. Knights of Ren."  
  
"Knights of Ren?" Sören snickered. "Why not Knights of Stimpy?"  
  
Margrét howled and snorted. Then Sören heard Ben yell, "WHAT'S SO FUNNY?" in the background, and Margrét innocently replied "Nothing," in English. Back to her brother, Margrét said, "Times like this I'm glad Ben doesn't speak Icelandic."  
  
"Oh I'll totally pick on him to his face. Knights of Stimpy." Sören laughed. "So what's the deal with Knights of Ren? It's not the cartoon dog, I take it."  
  
"No. Ren means lotus in Japanese."  
  
"So..." Sören scratched his head. "Why not call it Knights of the Lotus?"  
  
"Because that doesn't sound as  _cool._ " Sören could tell Margrét was making air quotes, and laughed again at the mental image. "He has to be all... mysterious and edgy and shit."  
  
"I guess so."  
  
"Speaking of people who are mysterious and shit, how's things with Alejandro?"  
  
"Oh come on, Alejandro is not anything like Ben. But já, já, things are good. I'm making dinner right now."  
  
"Oh, I was gonna ask if you guys wanted to come have pizza but if you've already started cooking that's fine."  
  
"Já, but maybe another time?"  
  
"Já, in a few days? I bought you a few presents."  
  
"Awwww, you didn't have to do that."  
  
"Yes I did." Margrét's voice was stern. "So you and your man get your arse here sometime soon, and let me spoil you."  
  
"If you  _insist._ " Sören cackled. "Though if you really wanted to get me something, you should have gotten video of Ben asking if people had any farts."  
  
Margrét laughed some more. "I love you, you know."  
  
"I love you too."  
  
"I'll let you get back to work."  
  
"Thanks. Talk to you later!"  
  
Sören got back to work, making  _arroz con pollo_. When it was ready, Sören went into their bedroom and took a moment to admire Alejandro napping, the long lashes framing his high cheekbones, chiseled face like an angel painted or sculpted by an old master.  _Time to wake Sleeping Beauty._  Sören leaned in to pepper his face with gentle kisses. Alejandro blinked his eyes open, and gave Sören a sleepy smile.  
  
Then he frowned. "What time is it?"  
  
"Six-thirty."  
  
"Jesus." Alejandro sat up and rubbed his face. "I didn't realize I'd been asleep that long. It was after two when I lay down for a nap."  
  
Sören patted him. "You must have needed it." He took Alejandro's hand. "Come on, dinner's ready."  
  
"It smells delicious."  
  
Alejandro set the table and put on a playlist that started with Black Tape For A Blue Girl, and once dinner was served, he paused for a moment. Sören watched him and when he picked his head back up and started eating, he asked, "Did you say grace?"  
  
"No." Alejandro sipped wine. "I was just... thinking."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow as he sipped his own wine. "Are you OK? Like, I normally don't come home and find you sleeping like that. Not that there's anything wrong with taking a nap! But as you say..." Sören took a deep breath. "The black dog never really goes away."  
  
"No, it doesn't." Alejandro nodded. "And yes, I had some difficulty today. Just... old memories." He raised his glass to Sören. "But now you're here, and things are better."  
  
"Illusory Me" by Love Spirals Downwards came on the playlist then, and through the haunting song, Sören got the sense that he wasn't entirely telling the truth about feeling better. Sören didn't press it, only watching Alejandro as he ate, his eyes far away.  
  
When dinner was over, Alejandro cleared the table and did the dishes, and Sören heard a shuddery sigh. He felt an empathic twinge, and he came over to see Alejandro trying not to cry as the water washed over his hands.  
  
Sören wrapped his arms around Alejandro from behind and nuzzled him, kissing his cheek before tilting his face so they could kiss, and then Sören looked into the stormy grey eyes. "I'm here,  _elskan_ ," Sören said. "Whatever you need."  
  
"I think I need to take a shower," Alejandro said. "I just ache from head to toe and I need to feel... clean."  
  
"All right, let's take a shower," Sören said, turning off the faucet. "Fuck the dishes for now."  
  
Alejandro looked a little nervous as they got undressed. Sören realized they hadn't showered together the entire time they'd been together, and then he picked it up in that brief glimpse beyond the shield before it went back up. "You've never showered with anyone, have you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Well, there's a first time for everything." Sören took his hands and led him to the shower. "Let me take care of you."  
  
Under the hot water, Sören began to lather Alejandro's body, making him smile and purr with contentment. Then he rubbed shampoo into Alejandro's glorious long black hair...  
  
...and that's when he saw Alejandro's ears for the first time. They were pointed.  
  
Sören couldn't help staring, and Alejandro looked away.  
  
Sören felt ashamed of himself for staring, but he was genuinely curious. Alejandro answered the obvious question. "It's a birth defect," he said. "I was born like this."  
  
"You know what?" Sören asked.  
  
Alejandro finally looked at him, and their eyes met.  
  
"I think they're beautiful," Sören said softly, and he meant it. He moved in to kiss him, resuming the work of lathering Alejandro's hair. Alejandro wrapped his arms around Sören, holding him tight, kissing him deeply. A moment later they were both hard, their cocks rubbing together, moaning as they kissed again and again.  
  
"You're so sweet," Alejandro said.  
  
"You are so fucking sexy." Sören nibbled the pointed tip of Alejandro's ear, making him moan and shiver. He licked the tip and sucked on it. "So, so sexy." He kissed and licked the sensitive place below the earlobe, and kissed Alejandro's neck. "So beautiful."  
  
Alejandro took Sören's face in his hands and stroked it. "I love you."  
  
Sören slammed him against the shower wall and kissed him again. "I love you, too." He dropped to his knees, and gave Alejandro an adoring look. "Let me show you how much." He took Alejandro's cock into his mouth, and melted his troubles away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In chapter 2 of _Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time_ , it's mentioned that Ben moves to Tokyo ca. 2012 and starts a visual kei band called the Knights of Ren. This is still accurate - the band he has with Margrét is the first incarnation of that band, and he moves to Tokyo following the infamous falling-out they had.
> 
> And yes, Sören really _is_ that clueless about who and what he's dealing with. His cousin Ari writes LOTR fanfic as mentioned in the previous chapter, but at this stage in the story Sören has yet to read any of Tolkien's other works. ;D


	4. Love Will Tear Us Apart

**Love Will Tear Us Apart**

 

 **2014**  
  
Sören and Alejandro had been together for almost five years now. They had been happy years. The two rarely fought, and their closeness deepened, even as Alejandro was still quiet about his past. They continued to ride the wave of  _be here now_ , tasting life together. Every now and again Alejandro would tell Sören, "You help me see the world through new eyes. You give me back a sense of wonder I lost a long time ago."  
  
This wonder was especially evident when they went traveling together, places that Alejandro had been before but Sören hadn't, never having left Iceland prior to meeting him. They had a week in France in 2010, a month-long trip to Italy and Greece in 2011, and two weeks in the Netherlands in 2012. It was pure magic, especially the time in the Netherlands, where Sören visited every art museum and notable place in art history that he could, and drank in the beauty of the tulips and the windmills. One afternoon, Alejandro smoked pot with him in Amsterdam, which led to the two of them laying in a country field underneath the big sky, watching the clouds, laughing at nothing, then laughing because they were laughing at nothing. They made love in the grass, and Alejandro let Sören take a rare picture of him, the two of them in a passionate embrace, that still stirred Sören every time he saw it even though the most it showed was bare shoulders, but Alejandro's lips were grazing Sören's neck, with Sören sucking his fingers in pleasure, their eyes locked, pure heat in their gaze.  
  
They were now on their fourth trip abroad, with Alejandro taking Sören to see his home country of Brazil, attending the  _Carnaval_  in Rio de Janeiro from Friday February 28th to Tuesday March 4th. They arrived in Rio on the 27th, scheduled to go back to Reykjavik on Wednesday morning. Their flight there had two-hour layovers in Belfast and Venice and a ten-hour layover in Lisbon, and on the return they would have six-hour layovers in both Casablanca and Madrid. On the long layover in Lisbon, they went sightseeing and had excellent food.  
  
Such was Sören's enthusiasm and sense of adventure with the trip there, that even though flying still made him nervous, he was in good spirits during the landing in Rio. But once they were at the hotel and Alejandro booked a room with two separate beds, Sören was not quite as happy.  
  
Alejandro explained as they got in the room, "We'll still share a bed while we're here. This is just to keep up appearances, to not arouse suspicion that we're..."  
  
Sören rolled his eyes. "You'd think that after five years together you'd just come out already."  
  
Alejandro frowned. "It's not that simple."  
  
"Nothing about you is ever simple, is it?"  
  
"No,  _meu querido_ , and you know this."  
  
Sören flopped down on the bed with a heavy sigh. "Like, you said you were going to visit what's left of your family while you're here, but I take it I'm not coming along."  
  
"Unfortunately, no. I can arrange a driver to take you wherever you want to go in the hours I'm away, and there's plenty to do here at the hotel - you could swim, get a massage, anything. But you know how it is. I told you from the beginning."  
  
_Yet you didn't tell me much at all._  Sören frowned, and Alejandro patted him. "It just... kind of hurts. Like there's a wall there, and you will never share your life with me completely."  
  
Alejandro closed his eyes and winced as if in pain. He pressed his hand to his forehead and the patting of Sören turned into gentle rubs, trying to be reassuring. "I wish it could be different,  _amorinho_. I really,  _really_  wish that wall wasn't there. But there are things you don't know - things you  _can't_  know, for your own safety -"  
  
Sören sat up, and their eyes met. A switch went off in Sören's head. "Your family is some kind of mafia or cartel or something, isn't it? Some kind of criminals?"  
  
Alejandro looked away.  
  
Sören went on. "So what, they're super Catholic and they think you being with a dude is worth going to Hell over, but they do organized crime and that's somehow OK...?"  
  
Alejandro looked back at Sören, and his nostrils flared. "I need you to drop this subject  _right now._ "  
  
The urgency in his voice, and the pain in his eyes, made Sören stop, and he just nodded and looked down. "Sorry I brought it up."  
  
"No." Alejandro sighed. "The fault is mine. Believe me when I tell you, again, that I wish that wall wasn't there."  
  
"I won't judge you for whatever mistakes your family has made."  
  
Alejandro laughed bitterly. "Sören, I told you to drop it and I mean drop it.  _Now._ "  
  
Sören took a deep breath. He instead flopped back down on the bed and found himself curling in the fetal position, feeling intensely sad, already regretting this trip.  
  
Alejandro still sat next to him, not flinching away, and after a few minutes he moved to the foot of the bed and began rubbing Sören's feet. He leaned in and their eyes met once more. Alejandro took a deep breath. "Look, Sören. Yes, there is a wall there that I can't let you past, and I'm sorry about that. And yes, I'm sorry that I will have to be away some of the time this trip to handle some business. But... everything that I can give you, I do. We will still get plenty of time together to enjoy the  _Carnaval_ , see the beaches, see the Cristo Redentor. Just because we're discrete to the public, doesn't invalidate what we do in private. It doesn't invalidate how we  _feel_. And right now..." He climbed forward and took Sören into his arms. "I'm glad to be here with you." He cupped Sören's chin in his hand and gave him a sweet, lingering kiss.  
  
Sören nuzzled him. "I love you, you know. So much that I want to shout it from the rooftops, want the whole world to know."  
  
"I know." Alejandro nuzzled him back. "And I love you." He stroked Sören's face and kissed his forehead. "More than you know."  
  
Dinner more than made up for the awkwardness of earlier, with delicious paella. They called an early night, after the exhaustion of flying all day, snuggling to sleep, and when they woke up the next morning they were both hard and started their day in a languid, sensual sixty-nine. Sören could still taste him at breakfast, and every now and again they'd give each other a naughty look.  
  
Alejandro had to go for a few hours that morning, and a driver took Sören to the Santa Teresa Neighborhood, which was a haven for artists, musicians and writers in the 20th century and still had an artist-colony vibe even though it was now full of clubs and boutiques. Sören managed to enjoy himself, though he found himself missing Alejandro several times, wishing he could make commentary. Sören snapped some photos, including a few awkward selfies.  
  
When Alejandro got back, they went to the Banda da Ipanema bloco for the first day of  _Carnaval_. Not usually fond of crowds and especially not big crowds, both men still managed to have fun in the revelry, with music and dancing - Sören loved watching the dancers as much as he loved dancing himself. Sören particularly liked seeing the parade of drag queens. When the tribute to Pixinguinha happened and the band played "Carinhoso" after a moment of silence, with everyone singing along, Sören found himself getting teared up.  
  
That evening they went to the Posto 9 at Ipanema. Sören smiled at the rainbow flags, though there were plenty of straight couples there, as well as artists and musicians working, and various hippie and punk types walking around smoking weed. Alejandro sat and watched the sea, and after awhile began to hum to himself and make notation in his ever-present notebook. Sören took some photos, and otherwise just leaned on Alejandro and rested, enjoying the atmosphere. When they got back to the hotel they climbed into bed, but after trying for awhile to rest, the proximity of their bodies and the leftover giddiness had an effect on them, and Alejandro "big spooning" Sören turned into a slow, sweet snugglefuck.  
  
On Saturday they took a cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain. Sören loved this, and his joy was infectious, with Alejandro smiling too. He didn't like pictures taken of himself, permitting Sören to take only a few over the last five years, but today Alejandro let him take a photo of the two of them together, grinning.  
  
After the trip up the mountain, they hit Copacabana. Sören sang the Barry Manilow song on the way there, making Alejandro laugh and roll his eyes. They had a lovely dinner and did some sightseeing on foot before going back to the hotel, trying to keep their hands off each other on the drive there. They made love more feverishly that night, taking turns being inside each other, each going two rounds with penetrating and being penetrated, four shattering orgasms before calling it a night.  
  
On Sunday morning they went to see the Cristo Redentor. Alejandro seemed pensive, and Sören felt very alone when he had to take off again for a few hours, enough that he only half-heartedly enjoyed his afternoon in the Parque Lage. But he still took pictures, wanting to always remember this magical trip. When Alejandro got back, they went to another bloco and danced the night away, and the earlier sadness was forgotten. Back at the hotel, they were tired enough from all the dancing to go right to sleep.  
  
Monday morning Alejandro was gone again, but he returned in the afternoon and they went to another bloco. They spent less time at this bloco, opting to go to Prainha Beach, which was less crowded than Copacabana and Ipanema had been. As the sun set, Sören decided to go in the water. "Be careful," Alejandro cautioned him.  
  
Sören went in up to his waist, and then out a little further, thinking he'd be fine, and that was when the undertow started to drag him. He swam, but the current was powerful. Alejandro rushed into the waves and pulled him back to shore. When they were safely on the beach again, he looked even more shaken than Sören felt, and indeed, the shielding Alejandro seemed to always have present around his mind dropped enough that Sören could feel absolute  _terror_  from him.   
  
"I'm fine," Sören told him.  
  
Alejandro just held him - for a moment, seeming to not care what anyone thought or assumed. They had dinner back at the hotel, and then Alejandro needed to kiss Sören everywhere before nailing him into the mattress, fucking him like their lives depended on it. The brush with danger also made Sören's more primitive instincts kick in, clinging to him, clawing up his back and chest so much that there were scratch marks later, which Alejandro smiled at in the mirror the next morning, proud of Sören's handiwork.  
  
The last day of  _Carnaval_  was another day of wild frolic - Alejandro rented them a place with one of the samba schools, and Sören managed to keep the rhythm well enough. Wearing costumes was fun, and the fireworks display that evening was breathtaking. In bed that night, Sören said, "Thank you for all of this."  
  
Alejandro took his hands and kissed them, before rolling onto his back and pulling Sören on top of him. Sören took him slowly and sweetly, and when they came at the same time, it rivaled the fireworks.  
  
Sören felt a bit lethargic on the trip back to Iceland, not as enthusiastic about Morocco and Spain even though he'd been looking forward to those layovers originally. He chalked it up to feeling the emotional drop now that the giddy rush of  _Carnaval_  was over, and perhaps lingering sad feelings about Alejandro going off without him to see a family that would never accept them together, as well as the aftermath of being pulled in the undertow at Prainha Beach, where Sören didn't want to think about what would have happened if Alejandro hadn't gone in the ocean after him. But when they had been back in Iceland for a few days and all Sören wanted to do was sleep, he had a feeling something was wrong, and sure enough, the fever and chills started not long after he'd deduced this wasn't normal stress fatigue.  
  
It wasn't Sören's first experience with getting sick after flying, but it was the worst one, with a high fever and a nasty cough. The same terror that Sören had seen in Alejandro after carrying him out of the ocean at Prainha Beach was back, with Alejandro not leaving his side - at least when Sören was awake enough to notice. He flitted in and out of consciousness. Sometimes he was vaguely aware of Alejandro sponging him to cool him down, or making him drink to keep hydrated. Once he could have sworn he caught a glimpse of Alejandro with his head buried in his hands, crying.  
  
Sören's fever eventually broke, but the cough got worse. Sören was having to take more days off of work than he anticipated. He didn't  _need_  to pay Alejandro rent, but it was something Sören was insistent about, not wanting to be seen as taking advantage of the wealthier man. Yet, Sören could barely stand, weak from fatigue, and the coughing was as violent as he'd ever experienced, enough that Alejandro made him see a doctor.  
  
It came back that Sören had walking pneumonia, and was told to take the next couple of weeks off and rest as much as possible. Sören's manager was fairly understanding, but Sören still felt terrible about it. But most of all, he felt terrible about the way Alejandro seemed very stressed out, like he hadn't gotten a lot of sleep, worried constantly.  
  
Sören's pneumonia did finally go away, and he never thought he'd actually be glad to be waiting tables again, but it felt good to do something besides lay in bed all day and watch TV, surf the Internet, or read. When he'd been back at work a few days, he got a text from Alejandro.  
  
_Can you get off early?_  
  
Sören couldn't resist the playful teasing of his response.  _Why - do you need to get off?_  
  
Alejandro replied  _LOL._  
  
That in and of itself raised a red flag - usually Alejandro would say something more than that to a question like that... usually something equally provocative, if not downright explicit of what exactly he wanted Sören to do to him. Sören felt the drop in his stomach, and waited.  
  
Alejandro sent another text a minute later.  _We need to talk._  
  
That was never good. Sören drove home feeling a sense of dread that he hadn't felt in a long time, and when he got in the door, Alejandro looked just as somber.  
  
"What's up?" Sören asked.  
  
"Sit down," Alejandro said.  
  
Sören sat, and for a moment they just sat in silence, and then Alejandro leaned back in his chair. "Sören," Alejandro said, "the last four years have been wonderful."  
  
"But." Sören raised an eyebrow. "What... what happened? What did I do wrong?"  
  
"You,  _amorinho_ , did not do anything wrong. But..." Alejandro buried his face in his hands again, and made a shuddery sigh. When he picked his head back up Sören could tell he was fighting tears. "When we were in Rio, I was informed that I am being married off. My family is very traditional, and I'm close to forty, no heir, all of my brothers are dead and none of them left heirs and... this has to change."  
  
" _What?_ "  
  
Alejandro nodded. He looked away, avoiding Sören's eyes. "I don't like it either. But -"  
  
"But nothing. You are a grown-ass adult. You're how old, thirty-seven? Almost thirty-eight?" Sören threw up his hands in exasperation. "You live in fucking Iceland, whatever's left of your family is in Brazil. They don't own you. You're not a slave. Tell them to go fuck themselves -"  
  
"Sören, I will lose everything if I don't go through with this." Alejandro looked down.  
  
"And what? You'll lose  _me_  if you go through with this, because I'm not coming back with you to Rio to be your side bitch and be alone all the time while you're off pretending to be straight and be a good little boy for whatever the  _fuck_  it is your family does, or maybe I'll even disappear if they figure out who I am. And what you're telling me, right now, is that your fucking money is more important than what we've had for almost five years? Which by the way, is a fucking insult to me considering you know I grew up without much money at all, and I've been waiting tables all this time. Boo fucking hoo, you lose your Jaguar and your silk sheets and your designer clothes. You're literally telling me, right now, that these things are more important to you than  _my heart._ "  
  
"Sören."  
  
"No. Don't even." Sören got up, feeling sick. "Do you even  _love_  this girl? I could at least forgive you if you'd fallen in love with someone else."  
  
"There's no one else. I love you -"  
  
"Fucking  _please._ " Sören shook his head. "Fucking spare me. That is so gross. People say marriage is just a piece of paper, and maybe it is, but people also take vows when they get married. They take oaths.  _They give their word._  And here you are, about to make an oath you won't fucking keep..."  
  
Alejandro cringed, hard. Sören sensed in that instant he'd hit below the belt, though he didn't understand why.  
  
Alejandro sighed. "Sören. You don't know how sorry I am -"  
  
"If you were truly sorry, you'd tell them no. You'd be willing to live like a normal person instead of a fucking... Kardashian, but without the media whoring. I can't fucking believe this. I can't fucking believe  _you._ "  
  
"Sören. It's not just the money. It's my family's legacy. It's what people in my family died for, and -"  
  
" _Shut the fuck up._ "  
  
Sören stormed into the bedroom and not thinking, just feeling the volcano of rage erupt, he began yanking his clothes out of the closet and tossing them on the bed. He wheeled out one of the suitcases, opened it, and started stuffing his clothes inside.  
  
Alejandro stood in the bedroom doorway. "So you're leaving."  
  
"Yes, Captain Obvious, I'm leaving. There's no reason for me to stay, if your decision is made, now is there?"  
  
"I suppose not." Alejandro was teary, and Sören looked away, infuriated that he was crying, getting an empathic sense that this was not as clean and heartless for him as it seemed.  
  
A moment later Alejandro came over and took Sören's arm, and with his other hand he turned Sören's face to his and kissed him hard.  
  
"One last time," Alejandro said. "Please."  
  
He kissed Sören again and Sören felt himself responding to the kiss,  _damn him_. As much as Sören was infuriated and disgusted, there were still too many feelings there, even now he wanted him, wished it didn't have to be this way.  
  
They quickly undressed each other and tumbled onto the bed together, on top of the clothes Sören hadn't packed yet. Alejandro kissed him passionately, petting Sören's curls and beard, his free hand caressing every inch of Sören's chest and stomach and thighs, before taking their hard cocks into his hand, stroking slowly.  
  
"I will always, always love you," Alejandro husked. "That will never change."  
  
"I fucking hate this," Sören sobbed. "Why do you have to go?"  
  
Alejandro kissed Sören's forehead. "I enjoyed - and will always cherish - what we had together. But we come from two different worlds, and perhaps it was never meant to be. I just wish we'd had more time."  
  
They cried together, and kissed some more, and then Alejandro kissed and licked his way down Sören's body, fingers walking, like he was committing Sören's flesh to memory. He rimmed Sören until Sören was screaming, trembling, begging for release, and then he sucked Sören's cock slowly, his silver eyes burning Sören's soul.  
  
In those moments the shield almost came down, and just enough for Sören to feel the  _ache_. Sören wanted to hate him, but there was so much sadness there, so much  _alone_. And when there were tears in Alejandro's eyes once more, and Alejandro reached up to put his hand on Sören's heart, Sören began to fuck his mouth, needing to give him this last memory.  
  
Alejandro sucked Sören hungrily, working his tongue furiously with his mouth full, with Sören gasping, panting, writhing until he erupted in Alejandro's mouth, so much cum that Alejandro almost choked on it, and Sören couldn't help smiling as he watched it seep out of the corners of his mouth. Alejandro gave him a last few slow licks through his orgasm, giving him aftershocks, and then came up to kiss him hard.  
  
Sören couldn't believe he was doing this, but he rolled Alejandro onto his back and kissed his way down, returning the favor, needing to taste him one last time just as badly. Alejandro was already quite worked up, his cock completely slick with precum, more of it dripping down the shaft just before Sören took him into his mouth. Their eyes riveted, Sören sucked him hard, and Alejandro gripped the headboard white-knuckled, arching, his moans getting louder when Sören fingered his prostate. When Alejandro came in his mouth, Sören swallowed it, savoring the sweet saltiness, like wine kissed by the salt of the sea.  
  
They continued kissing and petting, and Alejandro got out the lube. Sören opened to him willingly, guiding his fingers inside, fucking his fingers. When Alejandro's cock was in him, Sören matched his rhythm, rocking his hips back at Alejandro, craving it. Their hands roamed over each other, needing to touch, needing to feel. Their faces close, they kept their eyes locked, breathing each other's breath, until Sören's climax hit and then he closed his eyes, not wanting to see the pain he could already feel in Alejandro as Alejandro also let go, shooting his seed into Sören last time, crying out Sören's name like he was crying out to a god who had forsaken him.  
  
When it was all over, they held each other, crying.  
  
"You don't have to do this," Sören choked out. "Please. Please don't leave me."  
  
Alejandro gave him a wounded look. "I'm so sorry." He pressed his forehead to Sören's. "I have to. I'm so, so sorry..."  
  
They sobbed together, and at last, spent of tears, they just lay there entwined, feeling like they were prolonging the inevitable as long as possible.  
  
Sören's stomach growling intruded on that private sacred space. They sat up, and looked at the clock.  
  
"Have dinner with me one last time?" Alejandro asked.  
  
Sören shook his head. "I'll grab something on my way out."  
  
Alejandro sighed and ran his hands through his hair, briefly revealing the pointy ears again before it spilled back over his shoulders. He rubbed his face like an offended wet cat, and nodded. "Where will you go?"  
  
"Margrét." Margrét owned her own bar now, and she and Ben had fallen out two years ago; Margrét was living alone in the flat above the bar.  
  
Alejandro had been to Margrét's enough times to know how small that flat was. "You'll be sleeping on the couch and that's not very comfortable. Let me put you up in a hotel -"  
  
" _I don't want your filthy fucking blood money._ " Sören got up, gave Alejandro a withering look over his shoulder, and began to put his clothes back on, a bit roughly.  
  
When Sören's clothes, laptop and art supplies were packed, he wheeled his luggage to the door. Alejandro was dressed now as well, and they lingered at the doorway.  
  
They held each other tight, and kissed one last time, both men ready to cry again.  
  
"I love you," Alejandro told him.  
  
"I love you," Sören said. "And I never want to see you or hear from you again." With that, he wheeled his luggage down the hall, not looking back.  
  
  
_  
  
  
As soon as Sören got to Margrét's flat, he unfriended Alejandro and blocked him on Facebook. He also blocked Alejandro's e-mail address from his Gmail.  
  
_  
  
  
There was, of course, no arranged marriage, no girl. And though he had indeed grown up with the belief that he was damned for the needs and desires that came naturally to him, there was no traditional Catholic family. When Maglor Fëanorion had been in Rio and apart from his lover, he had been meeting with the contacts who'd assisted him in wandering without detection, seeing to finances in particular. Alejandro Magalhães had been the latest in a series of aliases, Magalhães being close enough to his name to work, and also being the surname that was usually translated Magellan, after the seafaring explorer. An inside joke, though a bitter one.  
  
For the first time in almost five years, Maglor went to bed that night alone. He couldn't sleep - he'd gotten too used to Sören's presence there next to him. In the morning he drove to Reynisfjara, where he'd first asked Sören to move in with him, and he walked along the shore. He picked up a seashell in his hand, studying it, this which had once been a home to some sea creature, since outgrown, left behind.  
  
He threw it into the sea, much as he had thrown the Silmaril ages ago.  
  
_Alone. In the end, all we ever are, is alone._  
  
Maglor almost wished he hadn't allowed himself this comfort, to love another, to get  _attached_  as he did, their threads entangled in the Song, Maglor's burning silver like the stars, Sören's shifting green and violet like the northern lights.  
  
He would have kept it going awhile longer before the inevitable - it had been Sören pulled into the undertow, and then sick with pneumonia, that had shocked him out of the haze of sensuality and passion he'd lived in, back to the hard, cold reality of his life. Sören was a Man, and as frail and mortal as Men were. He had seen that, he had finally  _felt_  it, and the thought of Sören dying was too much, especially the idea of  _watching him die_ , as he would someday.   
  
He felt awful for breaking Sören's heart, hated himself for lying - but this was the only way he knew how to end things. He'd thought about faking his own death, but he had a feeling Sören's survivor guilt would manifest and Sören would try to join him. He couldn't have that blood on his hands. That  _light_  going out from the world.  
  
So lies it was. Making Sören hate him, he would, with time, forget it and move on. That was the way of Men.  
  
Maglor, on the other hand, knew he would not be so fortunate, and the memory of this love would be one more thing haunting him eons from now as if no time had passed at all.


	5. Dancer in the Darkness

**Dancer in the Darkness**

 

 **2015**  
  
It was Friday night, and Sören was getting ready for his Friday routine of hitting the club. He applied mascara and eyeliner in the mirror, taking a moment to survey his choice of attire for the evening. It was the first of May and still sometimes chilly in Reykjavik, so he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt - a ruffly white shirt, with a black vest and black leather pants that made him feel like Jack Sparrow. He had on his usual Doc Martens boots, and opted to keep his mop of curls loose instead of tying some back.  
  
It had been over a year since he and Alejandro had broken up. After sleeping on his sister Margrét's couch for a few weeks, Margrét allowed him to use her office down in the bar as a single room occupancy. Sören also worked for Margrét now at her bar, an offer she made him after he'd been living in her office for two months. She paid him better than he'd been making waiting tables, though he wasn't rich by any means. He still had the savings account that Alejandro had wisely cautioned him to set up in case anything happened.  
  
Sören became a popular bartender, and indeed, a fair number of patrons came onto him. His room had seen a number of guests - in addition to taking the occasional bar patron back there, he'd also gotten a Grindr profile and had one-night-stands with contacts on Grindr, a mixture of locals and tourists. He also had a few local fuckbuddies who he hooked up with from time to time, but nothing he wanted to turn serious. He was still wary of getting into a relationship, and nobody he was fucking interested him in the way that Alejandro had so captivated him.  
  
The breakup with Alejandro had devastated Sören, enough that he stopped drawing and painting for awhile - he was still in a creative rut, over a year later. Going from doing something artistic every day since he was a child, to not being able to create at all, felt like he'd lost a limb, except in his mind. It was depressing, and feeling like his antidepressants weren't working anymore Sören went off his meds, even though he knew that probably wasn't the wisest decision in the world; when his fuckbuddies got him into the club scene, he began to self-medicate with MDMA, taking it at least once a week. He wasn't completely irresponsible - he still insisted on protection for intercourse, he was considering going on PrEP, and he tested regularly. Going to the club on Friday nights, he could lose himself in the music and dancing, lose himself rolling on molly, lose himself in the sex that usually happened later that evening.  
  
It was a temporary fix, and the comedown was usually unpleasant, but it was how he coped, these days. It was the only way he could feel alive anymore.  
  
On the way to the club, Sören listened to The Weeknd, feeling like the lyrics of rolling and having casual sex to numb emotional pain were too real. The music coming from the club was more uptempo, and Sören shifted gears mentally. Tonight was 90s throwback night, but the DJ was playing some current stuff first.   
  
Upon entering the club, Sören looked around for his friends Jón and Ólafur, known for wearing flamboyant outfits - Ólafur was somewhat infamous for wearing big goofy hats. Ólafur was also a dealer, selling kush and molly. Sören didn't see them, but he wasn't too worried. A good song was on, so he moved onto the floor.  
  
A little while later the DJ put on "Loud Places" by Jamie xx, a song Sören had been hearing on the radio lately, and it immediately darkened his mood.  
  
_I feel music in your heights  
I have never reached such heights  
  
I go to those places where we used to go  
They seem so quiet now  
I'm here, all alone  
You go to new places with I don't know who  
And I don't know how to follow you_  
  
Sören closed his eyes, thinking of Alejandro. For a moment he got the urge to run out of the club. Then he felt a tap on his shoulder. He whirled around and the first thing he saw was a huge yellow top hat with big rainbow feathers.   
  
"Hej, Ólafur. Hej, Jón."  
  
Ólafur was a tall, beefy man with a shaved head underneath the flamboyant hats and a longish auburn beard, wearing an otherwise preppy outfit. Jón was a shorter "otter" with wire-rim glasses, a brown fauxhawk and goatee, ear plugs and a ring in his septum, and was also dressed preppy, though Jón had a few different-colored handkerchiefs hanging out from his pocket for those in the know. That had, indeed, been how he'd first gotten Sören's attention months prior.  
  
Jón did the kiss-kiss on Sören's cheeks. Ólafur and Sören fistbumped, then Ólafur clasped his hand, and Sören felt the tab of molly pressed into his palm. He'd be by the bar later that week for Sören to pay, knowing he was good for it. After Sören downed the tab, he danced with Ólafur and Jón for awhile. Ólafur and Jón lived together in an open relationship, and sometimes the three of them hooked up after a night at the club, having a threesome, sometimes Sören went off with someone else. Ólafur and Jón were grinding up on each other so much tonight that he felt like a bit of a third wheel, and not really in the mood for a threesome with them.  
  
He started to look around the club for other prospects, and not far away, he saw long dark hair and sensuously swiveling hips in black leather pants. Sören's heart froze, wondering if he was seeing Alejandro here, but knew logically that was ridiculous because Alejandro didn't have hair all the way to his waist, and as importantly, Alejandro didn't like crowds and wouldn't like someplace like this in particular. Sören sometimes wondered if on some subconscious level he'd started partying as a "fuck you" to the man he was still hung up on, even though they were not in contact at all and there was no way Alejandro would know about any of this.  
  
The owner of the long dark hair slowly turned around. He was tall, lithe, pale, intense dark eyes, and had androgynous, somewhat feminine features - more pretty than handsome, with high cheekbones, a slim nose, and full lips. The long hair fell loose, covering his ears, though he had a few thin braids, glittering with purple and silver beads. He was wearing smoky eye makeup and black lipstick. Definitely not Alejandro, who had also been pretty -  _those long lashes_  - but was still distinctively masculine, with a proud jawline, and indeed Sören usually liked his men to be more on the masculine side and he especially went for guys with facial hair, like he had; the clean-shaven Alejandro had been a rare exception to his attraction. But, there was still something about this pretty boy that turned him on. He was dressed well, too, in a black tunic trimmed with purple and silver embroidered vines and lotuses, a contrast from the clubgoers who were either flamboyant or preppy with very little in-between.  
  
He sure knew how to work those hips.  
  
Their eyes met. The androgynous beauty smiled and crooked his index finger and gestured for him to come over.  
  
Sören pointed to himself and mouthed,  _Me?_  
  
The pretty boy nodded.  
  
Sören danced over to him, and the pretty boy came closer. He smelled like sandalwood, and his hands slid over Sören like he owned him.  
  
Pretty Boy came closer, his breath hot on Sören's neck. "I've been watching you all evening," he husked.  
  
He spoke English, which wasn't uncommon since there were tourists all year-round, but Sören couldn't quite place his accent. It wasn't the familiar Icelandic accent; it was  _almost_  British, but in a way where Sören could tell English wasn't the man's first language.  
  
"Well," Sören said, "I'm flattered, thank you." He smiled at his dance partner and, feeling bold, he caressed his cheek.  
  
The 90s music that was promised finally kicked off, starting with "What Is Love" by Haddaway. Sören threw his head back and laughed at the sheer memeyness of it.  
  
Pretty Boy chuckled too. "What doth love be?" he asked.  
  
"Scathe me not," Sören sang. "Scathe me not... henceforth!"  
  
But the mood went from silly to sensual, as Sören's dance partner launched into a set of moves like a pro, and Sören tried to keep up with him.  
  
Pulled into Pretty Boy's energy, it got easier to do, as if he were being guided somehow. They flowed together naturally, and after a few songs they were in the center of the club, voguing together to "Mr. Vain" by Culture Beat, being cheered on by an audience.  
  
Sören was in that zone of endorphin rush from the intense dancing and the molly was kicking in now. He was sweating a little, and Pretty Boy led him to the bar. Before Sören could order, Pretty Boy asked him, "Are you rolling?"  
  
Sören nodded. "Almost everyone around here is."  
  
"No alcohol for you," Pretty Boy said, and told the bartender, "He'll have a Gatorade."  
  
Sören smirked as he took the Gatorade. " _Takk_ ," he said as he watched Pretty Boy pay for both of them; Pretty Boy was having red wine, which wasn't a drink Sören usually saw at this club, people favored beer, vodka or the ever-popular Brennivín.  
  
"Make sure you keep hydrated," Pretty Boy told him.  
  
Sören rolled his eyes. "I do know a few things about partying. Plus I used to be in med school, so I try to stay safe."  _If not necessarily smart._  
  
"I see. I'm just looking out for you."  
  
"I appreciate it." Sören patted his shoulder, and then, feeling the rush from the molly, couldn't resist tweaking one of the braids. "You have great hair."  
  
"Thank you." Pretty Boy ran a hand through Sören's curls. "Yours is nice as well."  
  
Sören smiled. "You're an awesome dancer."  
  
Pretty Boy grinned lasciviously. "I know a few good moves, yes."  
  
That was a definite innuendo. Sören was already attracted to this guy, and would have been horny for him anyway, but the molly was making him feel even hornier. His hand slid down from the braid he was playing with, to Pretty Boy's chest, fingers lingering on bare skin. "I bet. Care to show me?"  
  
Pretty Boy led him back out to the dance floor, like he was playing with his food before he ate it. As horny as Sören was, he didn't mind, and their dancing was more sensual now, moving close, caressing each other and grinding on each other.  
  
"Are You Ready To Fly" by Rozalla was a more emotional song for Sören, as an artist, one of the many songs that had privately been a soundtrack for his relationship with Alejandro.   
  
_Do you know I'm watching your colors keep flashing  
I look through your eyes  
Grey is for waiting not knowing  
You're going to be by my side  
Red is for warning and blue is the color  
And yellow is love  
Black is the color of night  
When you're lying with me  
  
Are you ready to fly  
Can you leave the world behind_  
  
He continued to dance through it, but there was a moment when Sören had to catch his breath, almost ready to cry, his feelings on an amplifier with the molly.  _Are you ready to fly - more like are you ready to cry._  He felt self-conscious and awkward.  
  
Something must have shown in his expression because Pretty Boy took Sören's face in his hands, stroking it before moving in for a deep, sweet kiss. Sören kissed back, groaning. The two held each other and kissed some more, and as the song ended, they looked at each other.  
  
"You have sad eyes," Pretty Boy said.  
  
"I've seen some shit."  
  
Pretty Boy pet his curls. "It's all right," he said softly. "It's going to be all right."  
  
_It's never going to be all right._  But there was something about the way Pretty Boy was touching and kissing him that let Sören know that somehow, he got it, and was trying to provide some reassurance, some comfort in this dark night of his soul.  
  
Then the pretty dancer smiled and said, "I didn't catch your name."  
  
"Sören."  
  
"Like Kierkegaard."  
  
Sören's laughter rang out.  _That_  wasn't something he heard in a club, usually, a refreshing change. He was impressed. This time he initiated the kiss, hard. "Hell yes," he said, kissing him again.  
  
"I'm Van."  
  
"Well, Van." Sören wiggled his eyebrows. "Do you want to get... existential?"  
  
  
_  
  
  
Van had a hotel room. He told Sören when they got in, "I have to go somewhere in four hours."  
  
Sören didn't usually sleep with one-night-stands - he had not, in fact, actually slept in the same bed as anyone since Alejandro. He nodded and said, "We can still make that time count."  
  
"Oh yes."  
  
Van's room was set up like he'd been prepared for someone to come back there with him. There was a bowl of condoms and a tube of Astroglide, and a bottle of vanilla flavored massage oil.  
  
There was also a blindfold and handcuffs.  
  
Van noticed Sören noticing the props, and giving him a nervous look. Van told him, "It's your choice if we use those or not."  
  
If one of Sören's friends had come to him in the same situation, asking for advice, Sören would normally caution strongly against letting a stranger restrain you, because they could do anything to you and you'd be powerless. But even though Van was about as hard to read as Alejandro had been, something told Sören this was OK. Sören nodded, and started undressing. Van went in the bathroom, and Sören heard the water running, assuming he was freshening up.  When he came out, he was naked.  
  
Van was covered with wild-looking swirling black tattoos. Sören traced them with his fingertips, before Van kissed him and pushed him back onto the bed.  
  
The blindfold and handcuffs didn't come on right away. They spent a long time just kissing and touching, looking into each other's eyes. Van figured out all of Sören's sweet spots right away, almost as if someone had told him where and how, and Sören moaned and thrashed around beneath the clever fingers and tongue. Sex on E always seemed to make any kind of tactile play more intense, and tonight, somehow much more.  
  
At last Van gently rolled Sören onto his stomach, and after Sören consented to be bound, Van cuffed him. "Let me take care of you," he said.  
  
Sören spread, wanting to be fucked, but Van just laughed, lightly tracing along the rim of Sören's hole before swatting his bottom. "Not yet."  
  
Van poured massage oil onto Sören's back and proceeded to work on him, kneading, rubbing. Sören ached to be fucked, but  _god_  if Van's touch didn't make him melt. Sören felt weightless, boneless, brainless, flexing his fingers and toes and making little contented noises like a cat being pet. He could feel the tightness around his wrists with the cuffs, but it wasn't yet painful.  
  
What  _was_  painful was the urgent need when Van began to kiss and lick down his spine, and at last, when Van dipped his tongue into Sören's channel, teasing. Sören realized  _this_  was the reason for the cuffs, otherwise he'd be clawing the shit out of him trying to get that cock inside him. Van ate him with slow, languid strokes of his tongue, until Sören was sobbing and howling into the pillows, thrusting against his mouth, begging "Please, please..."  
  
After what seemed like forever, Van uncuffed him, rolled Sören onto his back, and then re-cuffed him to the headboard. He poured massage oil over Sören's chest, and spent quite awhile on Sören's pierced nipples, using his mouth and hands, sometimes his teeth, as Sören panted and whimpered and arched to him. Van eventually moved downward, licking and nibbling and caressing Sören's stomach, then his thighs.  
  
He straddled Sören and took their dripping, precum-slick cocks into his fist, stroking them together slowly, with Sören's eyes riveted on the erotic sight of their cocks together, more precum flowing. After a few minutes Van let go and then guided the head of his cock to the head of Sören's cock, making the heads kiss, and Sören cried out at the sight of their precum streaming, mingling. The captive bead in Sören's Prince Albert pushed into the slit in Van's own cock, and Van began to fuck his cock on it, both of them moaning. Sören again felt the urge to claw him, writhing against the restraints.  
  
"You are beautiful," Van said, reaching with his free hand to stroke Sören's face. "Wild. So much passion. You were made to be spoiled like this."  
  
Sören closed his eyes, thinking of all the times he and Alejandro made love, how sensual they were together, the way they spoiled each other, taking their time, making love like they were perfecting Sören's art or Alejandro's music, but with their bodies. He'd gotten used to that, the sublime, and then, after it was gone, he'd been having quick fucks with people who were just there to get off. He'd resigned himself to "good enough", but was it really? No wonder he felt so empty all the time.  
  
This Van was the sort of person who would have intrigued Sören, and could have been a candidate for more than a one-night-stand, if Sören still didn't feel raw as fuck over a year later. He was relieved Van wasn't asking him to spend the night here, because he would have broken his "I don't sleep with fuckboys" rule.  
  
Van pet Sören's curls, and leaned down to kiss Sören's forehead. Sören opened his eyes, and Van stroked his face again. "Beautiful," he said, before claiming Sören's mouth.  
  
As they kissed, Sören watched Van reach for the bedtable, and retrieve a condom. They kissed some more as Sören heard the packet open, and Van sheathed himself. He pushed slick fingers into Sören, finding the prostate right away, and began to kiss, lick, and nibble Sören's nipples as his fingers stretched Sören and teased the sweet spot inside him.  
  
When they were both ready, Van put the blindfold on Sören. "Let me guide you through the darkness tonight," he whispered.  
  
He began to push his cock into Sören's opening, and Sören pushed out as he pushed in, to make it easier. It was a tight fit - Alejandro was above-average, and Van was the first cock he'd had since then around that same size. Sören let out a sharp hiss of breath and Van waited, letting him adjust to the fullness.  
  
Then Van moved slowly. With the blindfold on, Sören had no idea what Van was going to do, and the surprise kisses over his neck and nipples and shoulders, the caresses out of nowhere, were all almost overwhelming in their intensity. It wasn't long before Sören was on that edge, and Van kept him there, sharpening and sharpening that edge, making Sören shake and gasp, Sören begging until he couldn't make words, just animal noises of heat. But it was so good that he couldn't complain, being lost in the sensual haze was almost as good as a release itself.  
  
"So beautiful." Van kissed his neck, licked and nibbled.  
  
Sören found his words. "Please, Van, make me come."  
  
"Mmmmmmmmmm." Van kissed him deeply, and reached down to stroke Sören's cock in the same lazy rhythm as his thrusts. Sören felt a finger tracing his lips, then it was in his mouth; Sören sucked, wishing he could somehow suck Van's cock and get fucked at the same time.  
  
Then Van conceded, pinning Sören's legs on his shoulders and driving into him hard and fast, with Sören screaming, his nails scraping the headboard, rocking his hips back, giving as good as he got it. "Yes yes  _yes_ ," Sören moaned.  
  
Van played with Sören's cock as he pounded him, and just before Sören could climax, Van snatched off the blindfold. Their eyes met, and that set off Sören's orgasm. Van aimed Sören's cock to spurt all over him, and the sight of coming on Van's chest and stomach made Sören's climax even better.  
  
Van thrusted twice more, then pulled out, yanked off the condom, and shot his load over Sören's body, almost like he was marking him somehow. Sören sighed, relishing the feeling of being soaked in hot cum, his orgasm continuing its delicious throbbing.  
  
Van undid the handcuffs, and Sören flexed his wrists.  
  
"Sore?" Van asked.  
  
Sören nodded. "A little."  
  
Van handed him a Gatorade, and Sören finally noticed there was a cooler of sports drinks on the floor near the bed, as if Van had been expecting to bring back someone who was rolling. Sören sat up and drank, and Van rubbed his wrists as he did, a tender gesture that made Sören smile. Then Van pulled him close, letting him rest awhile.  
  
When it was forty-five minutes away from the four-hour mark, they sat back up and looked at each other for a moment, before putting their clothes back on. They sat on the bed to put on their shoes, and Sören said, "Thank you."  
  
"The pleasure was mine."  
  
"No, really." Sören frowned. The molly was starting to wear off, not completely, but he was feeling that familiar ugly "back to Earth" drop. "I really needed that tonight."  
  
"I hope it helped." Van leaned in and kissed Sören's forehead again. Then he said, "I know this is really none of my business, but what's going on? Maybe talking about it a little might help."  
  
"You're not a therapist, I take it."  
  
"No, but sometimes telling things to an anonymous stranger can be liberating."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "In a nutshell, I'm still broken hearted over the guy who dumped me a year ago. I'm an artist who can't make art anymore, and my life has become this meaningless trash fire of partying with so-called 'friends' who I don't really have much of a connection to."  
  
Van took a few moments to consider his response, and then he said, "Do you want some honest advice from a total stranger?"  
  
"What the hell, go for it."  
  
"Get out of Reykjavik for awhile. A change would do you good."  
  
Sören snorted. "Like... where, exactly?"  
  
"The UK, perhaps? London area? Lots of opportunities there."  
  
Sören had never in his life considered leaving Iceland to live abroad, but he thought of his past travels with Alejandro and the way new places had inspired his art. The problem with his life now was that every day felt the same, and maybe...  
  
"All right. Thank you."  
  
Van walked Sören back to the club where Sören's car was parked. For a minute Sören wondered if they were going to exchange cell numbers or e-mail addresses, but then Van was off, and Sören gave a small sigh of disappointment as he got in his car.  
  
Once he was back at the bar and in the small office he called home, Sören looked at the time, did the mental math, and called his brother Dagnýr, who was an astrophysics professor at University of Toronto.  
  
Dagnýr answered after the first ring. "Holy shit, Sören! It's been awhile!"  
  
"Jæja. I'm... I'm sorry. It's..." Sören closed his eyes. "Depression sucks."  
  
"I hear that." Across an ocean, Sören could feel Dagnýr hugging him in their telepathic bond. "So what's up, man?"  
  
"Well... I'm pretty tired and we can do a full catching up another time, but can I talk to Matt? I have an important question for him."  
  
Matt was Dagnýr's new boyfriend, which Sören had first heard about from Margrét, because Margrét couldn't believe Dagnýr was dating the twin brother of " _þetta kunta_ " Kylo Ren, Margrét's former best friend. But Ben, now Kylo, had been right that he and Matt were nothing alike, and to all accounts Dagnýr and Matt were happy together.  
  
Dagnýr sounded surprised, and a little disappointed. "Uh, sure. Hold on."  
  
A couple minutes later, Matt's voice was on the other end. " _IT'S ALIVE_ ," Matt yelled, in English, a reference to the fact that Sören had been incommunicado.  
  
"Jæja, sorry, the Depression Monster has eaten me."  
  
"Your bro says you have something to ask me."  
  
"You're from the UK, right? I... may be moving to London, can you e-mail me some contacts of anyone you know out there who's hiring or renting?"  
  
"Wow. You're moving to London?"  
  
"I don't know for sure, but..." Sören was on his laptop as he talked to Matt, with two tabs open, checking airline prices and "average cost of rent in London by area". It looked like the savings account Alejandro had insisted he build would be enough to get him overseas and with a cushion to land as he tried to figure his shit out.  
  
"Yeah, lemme, uh. I can do that for you. I don't know how helpful it'll be, but even if the people I know can't help you, they might know people who know people, or something."  
  
"Anything is good. Thank you, Matt."  
  
"Welcome. Lemme give you back to your bro."  
  
Dagnýr was back on the phone now. "Jesus Christ, Sören, you're moving to London?"  
  
"I don't know. Possibly maybe."  
  
"Well... if you need anything, let me know and I'll see what I can do." Dagnýr's voice got serious. "Are you in any kind of trouble?"  
  
"No."  
  
"You're sure?"  
  
"Dagnýr, seriously, everything is fine -"  
  
"It's not fine, if you're leaving Iceland. I know you." Suddenly, Sören felt like he had been whacked with a newspaper all the way from Toronto. "You being stalked or anything? Trouble with the law?"  
  
"No. This is just..." Sören inhaled. "Life is really  _shit_  these days and has been for awhile and I just need to... start over again." The tears started.  _Like a phoenix, rising from the ashes. That's marked permanently on my fucking skin._  
  
"Awwwwwwwww, Sören." Sören felt another hug again from long distance. "You want to come to Toronto instead? Matt and I can put you up here -"  
  
"No, I've already been living with one sibling for awhile and I can tell she's kind of tired of being like a surrogate mom and I don't want to do the same thing to you. I got to do this on my own. I'm thirty now, for fuck's sake. Time baby bird spreads his wings, even if they're broken."  
  
Dagnýr had a bit of an obsession with 80s music and began to sing in English, " _Take these broken wings | And learn to fly again | And learn to live so free._ "  
  
"Dammit Dagnýr."  
  
" _When we hear the voices sing | The book of love will open up | And let us innnnnn_..."  
  
In the background Sören heard Matt belt out, "I BLESS THE RAIIIIINNNNNS DOWN IN AAAAAAFRICAAAAAAAAAAAAA..."  
  
Sören rolled his eyes and laughed. "OK. I'm... gonna go now."  
  
Dagnýr blew a raspberry. "Man, you don't appreciate the telethon we're putting on for your emo shit? WE ARE THE WORRRRRRRRRLD, WE ARE THE PEOPLE..."  
  
Sören held up his middle finger, and knew Dagnýr could see it in his mind's eye. "Fuck you guys."  
  
"I love you too."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Two weeks later, Sören was on a flight from Reykjavik to Heathrow Airport in London. He'd usually just zone out on a three-hour flight, but instead, this time he took out his sketchpad for the first time in... too long. He began to sketch a dancer with long hair, spinning with seven different veils in his hands. As he sketched he thought about how he'd paint it, where the man's hair would be dark, and he would be dancing in a garden, and each veil held a galaxy, another universe.  
  
He smiled to himself.  _Thanks, Van, wherever you are._  
  
  
_  
  
From the Portal, Vanimórë watched Sören set foot in Heathrow, taking a deep breath and putting one foot in front of the other.  _Rise,_  Sören broadcasted, giving himself a little motivational speech.  _Burn. Shine._  
  
Vanimórë would have taken more than four hours with him if he could - he was delicious - but that was the length of time before the fresh pair of dark contact lenses he wore to pass as human would be affected by his natural eyes, and Sören was not yet ready for any of this.  
  
On the other hand, even four  _minutes_  was too long, knowing that when his path crossed Maglor's once again and Maglor found out about it, he would feel quite similarly to how Vanimórë had felt when he had taken Elgalad first... Vanimórë felt a frisson down his spine, the  _spice_  of that anger. What an interesting time that reunion would be.  
  
This world, where Sören walked, was not quite the same as the one he'd come from. Some things were very much the same - he had restored the captive Maglor's fire, his will to live, and Maglor despised him for it. Maglor and that Vanimórë had the similar dance of hate and sex. But the Vanimórë and Elgalad of this world had died, and Maglor had since wandered too long, tormented. Alone.  
  
And in Sören's world, some of the Men - maybe a few thousand - of that world had power. Not as great as the Vala, they were not gods, they could and did still die... but it was indeed special. He had felt Sören's power, even though Sören kept it guarded.  
  
Maglor had felt Sören's power, though Sören had kept it as hidden as possible, not knowing who or what Maglor was.  
  
Vanimórë waved his hand over the Portal and looked in at Claire, in another world, where he'd already intervened for that Maglor. Then he waved his hand again to watch the Maglor of Sören's world, as of late in Alaska. He'd left Iceland within seventy-two hours of things going to pieces, but it wasn't lost on Vanimórë that even on another side of the world he'd been watching the northern lights and the midnight sun, breathing the crisp arctic air, still living and sleeping with the ghost of Sören Sigurdsson.  
  
_Thou fool._  
  
He watched Sören waiting at the baggage claim, looking like an eager puppy dog.  _I'm going on an adventure,_ Sören broadcasted.  
  
Vanimórë stepped away, then.  _I can see why he loved thee. I can see why he_  loves  _thee, still._  
  
Elgalad was waiting for him, with two goblets of spiced wine. They reclined together, Elgalad's arms wrapped around him. "How are thy plans?"  
  
"The seed has been planted. It will take some time to grow, and yield the necessary fruit."  
  
"Good." Elgalad cared, Vanimórë knew that much. For better or worse.  
  
Vanimórë planted a kiss to Elgalad's brow, and raised his goblet in a toast. "To love that endureth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in seeing Vanimórë's side of this encounter, please see the story [Balefire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18159113) by Spiced_Wine :D
> 
> _
> 
> Spiced_Wine also commissioned art based on the painting Sören ended up making from this encounter (which she posted in _[Fragments of Fate and Fire](https://archiveofourown.org/works/266459/chapters/47063515)_ ), and I was given permission to put it here as well:
> 
> [It was made by SaMo at deviantART.](https://www.deviantart.com/samo-art/art/The-dancer-806275242)


	6. Haunted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tip of the hat to Narya for the name "Mark Lowry". LOL.
> 
> Also a tip of the hat to Chantress for suggesting the bookstore name Turn Over A New Leaf.
> 
> If you're interested in knowing what Sören was up to during the time skip, [_Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787306) tells some of that tale.

**Haunted**

 

 **2019**  
  
_Akureyri, Iceland_  
  
  
The last day of May, a Friday, was a beautiful sunny day, and Sören's last class of the day at Logifugl Listaskóli was with the children aged seven to ten. For once they were working outside rather than in the classroom, sitting on a hill, coloring mandalas that they'd designed themselves from a list of options, with Sören using a computer program to draw and print them out. Sören smiled at Sólveig and Sigurjón, children of his neighbors, who had mandalas of squids and bunnies respectively. Their mother Vigdís had called Sören earlier to let him know her car was in the shop and asked if he'd do her a favor and drive the kids home.  
  
Sólveig smiled back at him, crinkling her nose, showing cute dimples. Sören's smile broadened - once in a great while he wondered about what it would have been like to have children, imagining that in a far-off universe somewhere he probably had a few of them. The sweet, silly Sólveig with her rose-gold hair and bright blue eyes was the kind of daughter Sören would have liked to have, and dote upon.  
  
But he didn't envy Vigdís and Páll. He'd made his choices in life, and while he had some regrets, he didn't regret where he was today.  
  
Sören would often work on the same project the kids were doing, and he got back to work coloring his mandala, which was waves of flaming birds, and his mandala was shaped as a seven-pointed star. Even though he was using colored pencils for his, he still felt like framing it after.  
  
"I like your birds," Sigurjón told him, and Sólveig nodded.  
  
"Thank you. I like my birds too."  
  
"You really like firebirds, huh?" Sólveig asked. The very name  _Logifugl_  was that.  
  
"I do." Sören had a lifelong dream of opening his own art studio, where anyone could come and create - "tune into the Song", Sören had called it. Just over a year ago, during the few months that he and his partner had broken up before getting back together, he'd stayed with his sister in a bout of severe depression; Margrét had won a fairly substantial lawsuit against Kylo Ren for plagiarism and emotional distress, and gave some of the money to Sören to start his life over again for the second time. So, here he was - from the ashes of grief, he'd burst into flame once more. He was proud of what he'd accomplished, how successful Logifugl Listaskóli was, how it had become part of the Akureyri community, with events besides the classes there, such as musicians performing, poetry slams, and LGBT days of remembrance. Once upon a time you couldn't have paid Sören to go back to his hometown, but he found himself missing it, wanting a simpler life.  
  
And life was good, these days. Sören was happy. So much so that when the class was over and Sören collected the pictures and art supplies, putting them on a cart to wheel back into the little building that had a couple of art rooms, a larger room for a gallery, and another large room for events, he was humming to himself.  
  
Sólveig and Sigurjón, staying behind to get a ride home, helped Sören put things away once they were inside. Sören went to the mini fridge he kept and retrieved three cans of Pepsi, handing them to the kids on their way out. Along the hall leading out to the door were a few framed pictures of Sören's work and a few of the other people who attended classes and events here. Closest to the door was Sören's first work, that put him on this path - the painting of what became the ink on his arms and back, a phoenix made of fire and one made of water, rising from flames and waves, against the backdrop of space. Their tails were entwined and hooked with the top spoke of a brilliant, rainbow-diamond-sparkling white star. Sören had only gotten the phoenixes on his back before he'd run out of money, and considered that "good enough" and then, over the years, had put off getting the flaming star inked there as well. It sometimes bothered him, like that part of the vision was missing, but it was what it was.  
  
He showed the painting to the kids, who oohed and ahhed, giving him a warm glow of pride even though he knew eight and ten year olds weren't professional art critics.  
  
The kids hopped in his black jeep, which had a rainbow flag bumper sticker, and Sören put on the radio, letting them select the radio station. They wanted the pop station, and Sören and the kids sang along on the drive from Akureyri into the tiny fjord village of Svalbarðseyri.  
  
_Players - put your pinky rings up to the moon  
Girls, what y'all trying to do?  
Twenty four karat magic in the air  
Head to toe so player_  
  
Sören knew if his husband could hear them now he'd be laughing at the Bruno Mars song sung along with thick Icelandic accents, and that made him smile.  
  
The cottage that Vigdís and Páll and their kids lived in, with an Icelandic sheepdog named Auli, was a fifteen-minute walk from the cabin where Sören and his husband lived. Sören instinctively looked out the window as they drove past to see if Dooku was outside at all, and figured he was probably inside writing. But he saw their tuxedo cat Snúdur in the window, who expected him to come home around this time, and Sören felt guilty at the look the cat gave him as he drove past.  
  
Vigdís, a short, stocky woman in her early forties with a messy reddish-blonde pixie cut, a ruddy complexion, and lots of freckles, came out of the cottage as soon as she heard Sören's jeep, or more accurately the music coming out of Sören's jeep, with the radio now playing Katy Perry. The kids continued singing along until Sören shut off the engine, and then he got out of the jeep with them.  
  
Vigdís hugged her kids and then she hugged Sören. "Thank you so much," she said. Vigdís tried to hand him a 500 krónur note, and Sören refused it.  
  
"It was no trouble at all," Sören said. "And they behaved themselves."  
  
"I'd still like to do something for you." Vigdís and Páll were good people like that, nice neighbors to have. "Páll and I were thinking about a barbecue when he gets home from work, perhaps you could call Nicolae and ask him to come down and join us?"  
  
Sören wasn't going to say no to that. He nodded, pulled out his cell phone, and selected Ion Nicolae Dooku from his list of contacts. After one ring, he heard Dooku's deep, velvet voice, which always got him going. " _Elskan_ ," Dooku said. They'd met when Sören was living in the UK, and usually spoke to each other in English, but Dooku had been making attempts to learn Icelandic, and Sören smiled at the term of endearment.  
  
"Hej Nico. I drove Sólveig and Sigurjón home from class and Vigdís is insisting on feeding us when Páll gets home, which should be soon. You want to come by?"  
  
Dooku chuckled. "I have something going in the slow cooker, but I can save it to reheat tomorrow."  
  
"Let's do that. They're making barbecue."  
  
"Barbecue  _fish and steaks_ ," Vigdís yelled in English.  
  
"Oh. Well then. I will  _certainly_  be there." A pause, and then Dooku said, "I'll bring wine."  
  
Sören snorted. "You and your wine. Drink Brennivín like a normal person."  
  
"Neither of us are normal,  _hjartað mitt._ " Dooku laughed again. "But if you  _insist._ "  
  
"I do."  
  
"I'll be there shortly."  
  
"Good." Sören hit End, and nodded. "He's coming."  
  
They went inside. Vigdís put on coffee, and Sólveig and Sigurjón worked on their homework at the kitchen table. They wanted to keep listening to the radio, so Vigdís had on the pop station. Auli came over to Sören for pettings, and Sören knew later Snúdur would sniff him, turn up his nose  _you were unfaithful to me with a DOG_ and walk away until he washed the smell off him, but Sören loved all animals, just like he loved children, and couldn't resist. He talked baby talk to Auli as he stroked the sheepdog's fur, who licked his arms and hands and finally put his paws up on Sören's shoulders to lick his face, and it was in this moment when Dooku knocked on the door and Vigdís let him in. Dooku's laughter rang out at the sight of Sören getting his face cleaned, with the goofy sheepdog putting his tongue right up Sören's nose.  
  
Dooku walked over to Sören. The six-foot-five, lean but powerfully built silver-haired-and-bearded former barrister didn't enter a room so much as he commanded it, and Sören smirked as Auli leapt off him and ran right over to Dooku for pettings, while Sólveig and Sigurjón looked up from their work and respectfully waved, and Vigdís straightened her posture as if a military commanding officer had just walked in. "Hej, Nicolae," she said.  
  
For years Dooku had been on a last-name basis with just about everyone, but since his move to Iceland he'd relaxed a little and allowed their neighbors to call him Nicolae; Sören had always called him Nico, which Dooku found curious but charming. Dooku did not care to be addressed by his actual first name, Ion, which was the same name as his Nazi sympathizer uncle. He was born in London in 1948, and had heard horror stories from his parents about the hardships of World War II in Romania, which even affected them, descended from Romanian counts, and when they decided to leave Romania had moved to the UK out of respect for Churchill's stand against the Nazis.  
  
Though Dooku would be seventy-one in December, he was in excellent health and quite physically active. Dooku came right over to help Vigdís get heavy bags of meat out of the freezer, and Sören took a moment to ogle his husband's physique - especially his tight, shapely ass - before Dooku sat down at the table and Vigdís set hot coffee in front of him.  
  
"How was your day?" Dooku's dark eyes, usually intense and stern, softened and twinkled at Sören, allowing a small smile that would be a grin on anyone else.  
  
"Today was a good day." Sören smiled back. "You should see the mandalas we're working on. I think I'm gonna frame mine when it's done."  
  
"Yes, I'd like to see that," Dooku said. "I always appreciate your work, and I like to see what others are doing."  
  
"Páll loves your classes for adults," Vigdís said. "Sometimes he even draws now instead of always playing games to unwind."  
  
"You could come by too," Sören said.  
  
"I'm no good at art."  
  
"It's not about being good," Sören said. "It's about expressing yourself and having fun. Some of the most famous artists of all time made  _shite._ " Giving a nervous look at the kids, who erupted into giggles, he said, "Er. They made  _poop._ "  
  
Dooku facepalmed, and shook with silent laughter.  
  
"Jæja, so. They were technically very bad, but what they had going for them was creativity and expression. My classes are for everybody. All you need to come in is an open mind. You should think about it! Coloring and things like that are a great stress reliever."  
  
"I'll think about it," Vigdís said.  
  
Just then, they heard Páll's jeep pull in. Páll looked like he could be in a Viking metal band, tall, muscular, long brown hair that he kept tied back in a ponytail, long beard, visible tattoos on his arms, gauges in his ears and a septum piercing, a T-shirt and jeans kind of guy. "Hej hej!" he said as he walked in, and brofisted Sören, then shook hands with Dooku. He grinned at the Brennivín that Dooku had brought over. "You heard we were having my world-famous steaks tonight, já?"  
  
Vigdís snorted. "Your steaks are great but they're not world-famous, Páll."  
  
"Sure they are! Akureyri is the world, for me. Or, at least most of the time." He frowned, and Vigdís also frowned.  
  
"Kristin called?" Kristin was Páll's mother, who had moved to the United States to marry an American.  
  
"Jæja, but we can talk about that in a bit, já? Let's get these steaks and fish on the fire."  
  
Dooku accompanied Páll out in the yard, where Páll put on the metal station - they both liked metal - and played darts while Páll barbecued. In the kitchen, Vigdís cut and fried up potatoes, and Sören made a salad. Sören was getting more confident making food again, after having been dismissed as "not much of a cook" by his ex Justin the footballer, who he'd been with before Dooku. Sören had spent long enough away from Justin to recognize a lot of his criticisms weren't valid but were in fact verbal abuse - Justin had been occasionally physically abusive as well. Dooku still did most of the cooking at the cabin because he liked it and he was excellent at it, but Sören liked being helpful when he could be.  
  
When everything was all ready, they went to the yard to eat, as it was such lovely weather. Before sitting down, Vigdís changed the metal station to the pop station, grinning at the annoyed look Páll gave her, giving him an air kiss.  
  
"Better not be any Justin Bieber shit, or I will change that channel so fast," Páll said.  
  
Sören snickered.  
  
Vigdís and Páll exchanged tales of the car breakdown and Páll's day at work, and the kids told them what they'd learned in school today. Then Vigdís brought up Kristin again. "So your mother called me saying she'd been trying to get a hold of you all day."  
  
Páll nodded. "I finally called her back when I got out of work. Did she tell you anything about why she was calling?"  
  
"The cancer." Vigdís nodded.  
  
Sólveig and Sigurjón exchanged worried glances. "Amma's got cancer?" Sigurjón squeaked.  
  
Páll nodded again. "Jæja, she's got breast cancer. She might beat it, it was diagnosed early, but..." He sighed. "We just don't know."  
  
"I'm so sorry," Sören said, reaching across the table to pat him.  
  
Dooku nodded, frowning. "I'm sorry too."  
  
"Shit happens," Páll said. "But I haven't seen her in years, and... she asked if we'd come out to see her. She wants us to come out till the end of August."  
  
Vigdís gave a surprised look. Then Justin Bieber came on the radio, and Páll swore in Icelandic and changed it back to the metal station.  
  
"We'd have to take time off work," Vigdís said, "and I don't know if we can afford that -"  
  
"I was thinking," Páll said, "we  _could_  afford it if we rented this place out for that period of time."  
  
"Oh jæja, you guys should totally do that," Sören chimed in. "It's gonna be peak tourist season, you guys could rent on Airbnb."  
  
"I suppose that would be OK," Vigdís said. "I don't really like the idea of strange people sleeping in my bed and whatever, but I'll live."  
  
"So it looks like you guys are gonna have new neighbors in a week, after I let my boss know and finally ask for that vacation time I haven't been taking. It'll just be till August, but." Páll scratched his head.  
  
"Keep an eye on them," Vigdís told Sören and Dooku. "Make sure they're not stealing stuff, throwing wild parties, that kind of thing."  
  
"We can do that," Dooku said.  
  
"You ever been abroad?" Sören asked the kids.  
  
They shook their heads.  
  
"Where does your mother live?" Sören asked Páll.  
  
"She lives in Minnesota. Her husband is a Swedish American. Nice fella. He's divorced and has a lot of kids, I've never met any of my stepbrothers and stepsisters so this'll be something new for me too," Páll said.  
  
"I hope the trip goes well and that your mother pulls through," Dooku told him.  
  
" _Takk_ , mate."  
  
Sören smirked. "I wonder who we're gonna get as new neighbors while you guys are away."  
  
The radio launched into a Knights of Ren song, and Vigdís cringed and put it back on the pop station. "None of that," she said.  
  
A Lady Gaga song was already in progress:  
  
_You know that I love you boy  
Hot like Mexico, rejoice  
At this point I gotta choose  
Nothing to lose  
  
Don't call my name  
Don't call my name, Alejandro_  
  
Sören drove the knife into his steak, hard. Everyone at the table looked at him, and Sören flushed and said, "Sorry, muscle spasm."  
  
He tried to not cringe as the song went on, nibbling on his food. Things went back to normal, or at least they did for everyone but Dooku, who gave him a look across the table. Dooku knew better.  
  
Dooku had the same gifts Sören did - telepathy and empathy, being able to move objects without touching them, strong intuition. Dooku called it "the Force", a term he'd learned from an old mentor. Dooku was the first person that Sören had ever met to be open with him about his gifts, and the first person outside his siblings and cousin with whom Sören could be open in turn - indeed, the friendship that had blossomed into a relationship had started when Sören, having an anxiety attack at an art exhibit, turned on a water faucet without touching it in a public bathroom.  
  
Sören had never talked about Alejandro to Dooku, except once, just before he and Dooku had broken up for a few months in early 2018.  _"My longest-term relationship was with a closeted gay man - a Brazilian, named Alejandro, a musician - who eventually chose a 'normal' life, over me. He wasn't even in love with the girl he married, he just did it to please his family."_  
  
But Dooku didn't forget things, and he could tell across their Force bond that the song was upsetting Sören. And Sören was getting aggravated with himself for even feeling that sting, again, five years later. Alejandro had been the first great love of Sören's life, and Dooku the second, and Sören knew logically that when a person had such an intense relationship, there would be grief when it was over, but the glimmer of memory was like a rude slap in the face, putting a damper on the day that had been going so well.  
  
After dinner the adults relaxed with some Brennivín, Auli getting lots of pettings, and finally, Sören drove the jeep home, with Dooku sitting in the passenger seat. They were quiet on the short drive home, and quiet as they got in. Predictably, Snúdur snubbed Sören, and Sören started to undress, taking a hot shower by himself to help unwind.  
  
In the shower, "Alejandro" started playing in Sören's head, and Sören leaned against the shower wall, trying not to cry. He had tried to forget, and indeed it had felt like time had healed his wounds. Except not really. The kind of love they'd shared, right up until the end, was not the sort of thing to be dismissed so easily.  
  
_I hope you're OK, wherever you are._  
  
Sören got out of the shower and put on his red plaid pajamas. Dooku was already in his black silk pajamas, typing on his laptop, and when he saw Sören standing there, they just looked at each other for a moment and then Dooku patted the seat next to him.  
  
He put his arm around Sören, who leaned on him. "Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
"I don't know what there is to talk about."  
  
Dooku took a deep breath. "Well, you've never actually shared much about that part of your life to me. We've been pretty open about other things, but..." He pet Sören's curls and kissed the top of his head, then cupped Sören's chin and looked into his eyes. "Was he abusive like Justin?"  
  
"Oh no. Not at all." Sören sighed. "Quite the opposite. We had four, almost five, wonderful years." Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "I would have married him if he'd asked me to." His eyes met Dooku's again. "In many ways, what we have now... was made possible by my relationship with him. He was a lot like you were when we met - sad, reserved. But like you, past that reserve there was richness and depth. So much to him.  He was very elegant. Very passionate and sensual. He made me a better lover." Sören's face burned. "I'm, ah, sorry. I shouldn't talk about my past sexual history -"  
  
Dooku waved his hand dismissively. "It's fine. I'm aware you had lovers prior to me. It's not something I can fault you for."  
  
"He was touch-starved, like you were." Sören took Dooku's hands and kissed them. "He was very, very private about his life, and probably for good reason - I think his family was involved in some kind of South American organized crime ring or military junta or something like that - but what did get out, here and there, was tragic. There was that sense from him that he felt absolutely alone in the world and had so many regrets... just like you did when we met."  
  
"You have a type, apparently."  
  
Sören gave a throaty laugh. "I suppose so." He got more serious. "You sure you're not mad...?"  
  
"No, not at all." Dooku patted him. "To the contrary, I'm glad you're finally talking about what was clearly such an important period of time for you."  
  
"I was absolutely devastated when he broke up with me," Sören said. "There was about a year, after we'd broken up, that I just. Oh god." Sören felt like he was crossing into dangerous waters, and maybe should shut up, but Dooku gave him the go on gesture. "I started partying. Lots of one-night-stands. I played it safe, I got tested. You and Alejandro and Justin have been the only three guys I've ever barebacked with."  
  
"I see."  
  
"But, I was also, ah, doing a lot of E. Which as it turns out, wasn't great for my mental health when I'd come down from it. I was getting more depressed, and I wasn't on my meds then so I could roll. When the E would drop off, I was even having sleep paralysis and night terrors and shit like that."  
  
"Oh my."  
  
"Já. My life was straight out of a song by The Weeknd, OK?" Sören laughed bitterly; Dooku nodded, his musical horizons having been expanded by his younger partner. "It's why I left Reykjavik. I needed to get out of that scene. Someone helped me see the light on that. Not that I succeeded entirely, at first, 'cos after awhile I ended up with Justin and  _wow_ , what an arsehole." Sören looked down, picking at a stray thread on his pajamas. Then he looked back up. "But já, I was bleeding out for awhile, and trying to numb the pain. Some of the best art I ever made in my life was during my relationship with him, and then I couldn't make art anymore, and it was like losing a limb. I started back up again when I left for London, of course, and then I hit a new high in my art, with you. Love inspires me, I think."  
  
Dooku smiled, and stroked Sören's face. Then they just held hands.  
  
"We went traveling a bit," Sören said.  
  
"Oh." They'd visited Romania for a week in April, for Easter, even though neither of them were religious, and Dooku had gotten the sense Sören had been abroad before though not to Romania, but Sören hadn't talked about it then.  
  
"I have some files on my terrabyte drive that I haven't touched in ages if you want to see places I've been?"  
  
"I would, yes."  
  
Sören got up to fetch his drive, and plugged it into his laptop. He waited for it to load, and Snúdur hopped up on the couch between them, forgiving Sören for petting a dog. Dooku and Sören skritched and stroked the cat together, rewarded by the deep, rumbly purr, and then the folders loaded. Dooku's eyes widened at how many there were, and Sören knew across their Force bond he was surprised because Sören had been a starving artist when they met, living above a coffee shop in Greenwich with his punk roommate and best friend Frankie.  
  
"Yes, he was loaded," Sören said, confirming what Dooku was wondering. "But I wasn't with him for his money."  
  
"Oh, I know." Dooku squeezed his knee reassuringly. "You're not superficial at all."  
  
"Sometimes I used to  _wish_  I was? Because being, you know,  _like this_ , kinda sucks sometimes."  
  
"It kind of sucks a lot of the time," Dooku said, knowing how it was as a fellow deeply empathic Force sensitive.  
  
"Wow, I can't believe you're using words like 'kind of sucks' now." Sören snickered. "I've had quite the effect on you."  
  
Dooku gave him a look of mock annoyance, and Sören kissed the tip of his nose, grinning. Then he turned back to the laptop.  
  
Sören started with a folder entitled "France 2010".  
  
There were a  _lot_  of pictures of the streets of Paris, as well as French wine country, beaches, art museums, monuments, and lots and lots of pictures of just food. There were quite a few selfies of Sören, who was more baby-faced at twenty-five than he was now at thirty-four, and Sören could tell across their Force bond that Dooku was puzzled there were no pictures of Alejandro as he was going through the gallery.  
  
"He didn't like having his picture taken," Sören said, "but I think there's at least one here."  
  
There were in fact two. One was of Alejandro in a bistro, drinking a cup of tea or coffee, lost in thought as he was composing music in a notebook, somber in a black turtleneck and black chinos. Sören sensed Dooku's surprise at the long dark hair, the almost unearthly beauty, like a Renaissance painting or statue brought to life.  
  
The other was a selfie of Alejandro and Sören, taken from the Eiffel Tower, with a view overlooking Paris in the background. Alejandro was kissing Sören's cheek, and Sören had a bashful and somewhat mischievous grin on his face.  
  
"The two of you looked well together," Dooku said honestly, and Sören could sense across their Force bond that he found Sören's ex aesthetically pleasing.  
  
Sören bit his lower lip, remembering how he'd felt during that trip, which at the time felt like the most romantic thing ever, but Alejandro was to outclass himself in subsequent years.  
  
There were over two hundred pictures just in the France folder, and Sören had only been there for a week. "Netherlands 2012" was two weeks and three times as many pictures. It became apparent that Sören was obsessed with the art history there, but also the springtime - a riot of tulips, picturesque fields of windmills and swaying grass under bright blue skies with fluffy clouds. Beaches and the ocean. A picture of Alejandro playing guitar, a glove on his right hand. A picture of Alejandro composing in a notebook, in a lush tulip garden, looking out of place amid the explosion of color. More selfies of Sören, including a few of Sören toking up in Amsterdam, glassy-eyed, an expression on his face that Sören would call "derpy".   
  
Towards the end of the gallery there was a picture of Sören and Alejandro together. It was from the shoulders up - bare shoulders, and grass underneath them. Alejandro was kissing Sören's neck, and Sören's full lips were wrapped around the long, slender, graceful-looking index and middle fingers of Alejandro's left hand. They were looking into each other's eyes, completely lost in each other.  
  
Sören twinged, remembering the way they'd been laying in the grass under the big sky, laughing together - for once, the constant weight of darkness around Alejandro was lifted and Sören could feel the  _joy_  past his shielding, a joy he never thought he'd feel again. They made love right there, no one to see them, and not caring if they were seen.  
  
Sören remembered the U2 song playing as they drove back  
  
_Gloria in te domine  
Gloria exultate  
Oh Lord, if I had anything  
Anything at all, I'd give it to you_  
  
and the way Alejandro looked at him, love shining in those grey eyes, continuing to radiate quiet joy, as if he had written the song himself about what he was feeling then.  
  
It was like being stabbed, thinking about all of that again. His eyes misted.  
  
Across their Force bond was a very different feeling; Sören heard the sharp intake of breath. Even though the picture was only from the shoulders up, Sören realized that Dooku found the sight of them arousing, more erotic than anything more overtly pornographic. It was the beauty of the two men, the sensuality between them, the way they looked at each other, so much said in that hungry gaze.  
  
It was the same way Sören and Dooku looked at each other, and were looking at each other now, as Dooku reached out for him, feeling Sören's pain in their bond, wanting to comfort him, and Sören reached back to the old man who was like the sea, able to keep his fire from consuming him completely.  
  
"I'll, ah." Sören closed out the folder and leaned on Dooku. "Show you the rest another time."  
  
Dooku squeezed his hand, pet him, kissed his forehead tenderly.  
  
"It's funny," Sören said, "not funny ha-ha I mean, but... I don't hate him anymore. I hated him for breaking my heart, and yes I suppose I'm still angry and hurt, but I just feel very, very sad for him. I wish him well."  
  
Their eyes met, and Dooku stroked his face. "You have a kind heart."  
  
"It's yours."  
  
Dooku leaned in and kissed him, and Sören kissed him back, hard, one hand stroking the white chest hair visible through the V-neck of his pajama top, the other hand stroking the white beard. He was so deliciously  _male_ , and Sören loved touching him, and could feel that he in turn loved being touched, having been so alone for so long, deprived of warmth. Here was heat, here was life, fire crashing into cold water and making steam.  
  
A few kisses later, Sören stood up in a rush, and hurried to the bathroom. He cleaned up, preparing himself, and when he came out of the bathroom, Dooku was standing there, waiting. He picked Sören up off the floor, carrying him to the bed like he weighed nothing. Once Sören was put on the bed, Dooku used the Force to pull off Sören's pajama bottoms, smiling at finding Sören hard for him. Sören ogled appreciatively as Dooku took off his own pajama top and then dropped the trousers, standing proudly erect, already leaking precum. Sören's hands started shaking with arousal, fumbling with the buttons on his pajama top, and Dooku climbed on the bed and over him, his fingers undoing the buttons, kissing each inch of flesh exposed. As he pulled back the open shirt, revealing Sören's pierced nipples, he took one into his mouth, making Sören clutch him, arching, crying out.  
  
Dooku reclined against the pile of pillows on their bed, pulling Sören onto his lap. His arms wrapped around Sören as the younger man leaned in for a kiss, running his hands over Dooku's chest, fingers playing with the chest hair, rubbing nipples into hard peaks. Dooku took their cocks together into his hand, stroking slowly, and Sören groaned, kissing Dooku's neck, cock throbbing at the guttural noise Dooku made at the work of his lips and tongue.  
  
Sören used the Force to bring over their bottle of lube, and used the Force to pour it over their cocks. The sight of their cocks pressed together, glistening, drove Sören out of his mind with lust, and he tried to climb up, desperate to take his husband's cock, but the look in Dooku's eyes held him in place, before Dooku nipped Sören's lower lip with a little growl. "Not yet, sweetheart," he rasped.  
  
With slick fingers, the fingers of Dooku's other hand pushed into Sören, making Sören moan as he found the prostate, fingers swirling, stroking. The past was forgotten and all that mattered was the haze of pleasure, the hungry need to mate with the man he'd given his heart to, who'd been so worthy of that trust, the two of them careful with each other, broken pieces fitting together and creating a new work of art. Sören's fingers continued to play with the chest hair and soon Sören was licking it, grooming it with his tongue, animal heat in his eyes as Dooku moaned, breathing harder, stroking their cocks faster.  
  
A few deep kisses later, Dooku kissed and nibbled his neck, and ground out, "Now, love."  
  
Sören straddled his hips and sank down on his cock. He watched Dooku watching him, feeling that delicious frisson at the sight of his cock going in, claiming him, possessing him. Sören loved the sensation of completion, fullness, and as he rocked his hips, the cock plunging in and out, he cried out at the slight curve of the older man's cock hitting him just the right way, like they were built for each other.  
  
"Oh, Nico," Sören gasped.  
  
"Yes, my love." They kissed, and Dooku grabbed Sören's hips, rolling his own underneath him as Sören rode.  
  
It wasn't long until Sören was riding him hard, holding onto him for dear life, making little whimpers, panting, as Dooku's cock hit that note over and over again, undoing him, making everything all right again. Feeling the lust across their Force bond made it that much better - lust and tenderness, Dooku's need to soothe and give Sören whatever he could, gentle with his vulnerability. They kissed and their hands wandered over each other, and when Dooku's hand playfully slapped Sören's ass, he moaned, almost coming from that. Inflamed, he rode harder, making the bed rock against the wall, and Dooku gripped him harder and thrust beneath him, driving into him mercilessly, Sören's cries louder and louder.  
  
"So beautiful." Dooku's hands roamed up from Sören's hips, to play with the taut pierced nipples, before seizing one with his mouth. Sören screamed and bucked wildly, their mouths meeting for a hungry kiss.  
  
Then Dooku grabbed Sören and pushed him onto his back, and started to slow down, kissing him deeply, kissing Sören's neck as Sören whined, trembling with how bad he needed to come, but  _Force_  he loved to be teased like this, edged. There was a wicked look in Dooku's eyes as he feasted on Sören's nipples, licking and suckling them hard, making Sören writhe and pant, clawing his back, begging "Please... oh god, please..."  
  
"Mmmmm." Dooku kissed and licked Sören's neck. "Please what,  _elskan_?"  
  
"Fuck me hard, make me come..."  
  
Dooku's finger idly traced around the aching nub of Sören's nipple, before rubbing over it, pinching. "Hmmm, I'll think about it." He grinned, and kissed Sören hard, with Sören screaming into the kiss, clawing his back again.  
  
The edging intensified, with Dooku stroking Sören's cock, gently cupping and rubbing his balls. Sören thrashed around, not able to make words, lost in pure animal need. Again and again he felt on the verge of orgasm and just before he could come, Dooku sensed it across their Force bond and changed the pace, or focused on another part of Sören's body. Sören could feel how hard Dooku was holding back, keeping himself in check, also aching to come but wanting to make this damn good for his beloved, taking pleasure in Sören's pleasure. Sören could feel in those moments how deeply Dooku loved him, and how much he loved his man, how much they  _belonged_ , giving each other life again.  
  
Sören had been used and discarded by so many people, starting with the rejection from his guardians as a child. There was none of that here. Only love. Only acceptance. Only trust.  
  
"I'm here," Dooku husked, in between kisses at Sören's neck, his shoulder. "I'm right here, sweetheart. I'm here. Right here."  
  
"Don't leave me." The words bubbled out before Sören could stop them, the deepest wounds he held, needing his touch.  
  
Dooku's words were punctuated with his thrusts, harder now, giving Sören the harder fucking he'd been begging for. "I will never. Ever.  _Ever._  Leave you. Never. I love you. With all that I am, I love you."  
  
"I love you so, so much." Sören wrapped his arms and legs around him, and kissed him hard.  
  
Dooku grabbed Sören's wrists and pinned him down, pounding him into the mattress as Sören howled "Yes yes yes  _yesyesyes_ ," matching his rhythm, his entire body shaking,  _right there_. Dooku kissed him hard again, and then growled, "Come for me."  
  
" _Nico!_ " Sören screamed as he erupted, blasting his seed all over Dooku's chest, the release of pleasure so intense it almost hurt. One, two, three thrusts and Dooku collapsed onto him with a cry, trembling, gasping for breath as he spent into Sören, also coming hard. Sören moaned as he felt Dooku shooting into him, claiming him with the evidence of their tryst.  
  
They nuzzled, breathing each other's breath, before kissing again, taking each other's hands. Then Sören snuggled into his chest, comforted by the warm fur, and the feel of Dooku's arms around him, his hands petting his curls. Their legs entwined, and Sören gave a deep sigh of contentment. Things had fallen apart, years ago, but other things had come together, and he was glad to be here now, sharing his life with this man. Melting in his arms.  
  
_It's all good now._  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Anchorage, Alaska_  
  
It was a quiet afternoon at Turn Over A New Leaf, an independent bookstore in downtown Anchorage. Mark Lowry nursed a mug of tea while Depeche Mode played in the background, hoping that it would stay quiet. He didn't really need the business, as he'd been sitting on various investments managed through handlers to provide a veil of anonymity for some time. But the bookstore allowed him a chance to pass as normal in the community without too many intrusions, and it was somewhat comforting to be surrounded by books.  
  
Since he had left Reykjavik for Alaska five years ago, Alejandro Magalhães had become Mark Lowry. Alejandro was a Brazilian, and he'd learned fluent Portuguese to play the part. Mark Lowry was - at least here, in Anchorage; he'd re-used the name from before - an American, originally from Connecticut if people asked, with a careful New England accent. Alejandro had been a romantic, gothic type, dressing in flowing shirts and leather pants, playing up the part of an ethereal-shoegaze musician. Mark wore sweaters and khakis or jeans and wire-rim glasses that he didn't need, though the long hair remained the same - his vanity, and a convenient way of hiding his ears.  
  
Mark Lowry was also not getting involved with anyone ever again, the mistake Alejandro had made. There were frequent customers to the bookstore who he was fond of, if he could rightly call them friends or at least friendly acquaintances, but nobody he was close to. He couldn't allow himself that.  
  
The chimes at the door jingled, and Maglor watched as a customer strolled in, a tall, bald man in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He looked around and then his eyes focused on Maglor, who brushed a strand of dark hair out of his eyes and cleared his throat. "May I help you?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, uh." The man laughed nervously. "My daughter's birthday is coming up and she, like, really loves books, and I have no idea what to get her."  
  
"How old will she be?"  
  
"Thirteen."  
  
Maglor led him to the YA literature section, and at the man's confusion, Maglor showcased a few recommendations of his, with an off-the-cuff synopsis of what they were about. Then he went back to his counter, where his tea was now cold. He sighed, putting the mug back in the microwave on the small table behind him.  
  
When his tea was finished, the man approached with two books, plus a set of butterfly stationary. "Cash or credit?" Maglor asked, the same routine as always.  
  
"Credit." The man pulled out his wallet and handed over the card.  
  
As Maglor was handing the card back, he glanced down at the name, routine habit - JAMES SORENSON.  
  
Maglor felt the pit of his stomach fall, and the next few minutes passed in a haze. On some level he was aware of the customer signing his credit stub and the purchases going in a bag and the customer walking back out, and on some level Maglor wasn't there anymore, thoughts blurred, pain rushing up from the core of his being like a dormant volcano finally exploding.  
  
When the man was gone, Maglor heard himself inhale sharply, closing his eyes.  _Sören._  It had been five years and the wound was still raw. Of course, he'd been covering it up. Shutting it out, trying to not think about it. He had  _very deliberately_  closed himself to Sören's place in the Song, not wanting to hear him anymore. It hurt too much.  
  
But now, not being able to help it, he brushed the notes. There was the violet and green shimmering fire, like the aurora. He was still alive.  
  
Then he felt an all-too-familiar presence, deep purple, the smell of sandalwood. Before he could probe the Song further, to sense what else was there, he ripped himself away from those notes. Maglor  _threw_  the empty tea mug and it shattered, right where customers would need to walk to get into the store.  
  
Vanimórë - who was supposed to be  _dead_ , had somehow found Sören.  _Taken him._  
  
Maglor's jaw set. The explosion of throwing the tea mug did nothing to calm the murderous rage coursing in his veins.  _Thou wouldst spite me this way._  
  
As Maglor was on his knees sweeping up the mess with a dustpan, the door chimed again. Maglor looked up, and the brush fell out of his hand, clattering loudly to the floor.  
  
Vanimórë was there, in the flesh, wearing a black trenchcoat. He was wearing some sort of contact lenses to glamour himself, not reveal the true color of his eyes, but it was otherwise unmistakably him.  
  
" _Get out._ "  
  
Vanimórë laughed. "Is that any way to talk to an old friend?"  
  
"We. Are. Not. Friends." Maglor's nostrils flared and he got up, taking the dustpan to the trash and emptying it, glaring at Vanimórë the entire time. "I am  _not_  glad to see thee."  
  
Vanimórë's voice softened, a sensual caress. "Oh, I think one  _part_  of thee  _is_  glad to see me."  
  
Hating that he was right, feeling the stirring in his loins, Maglor would have thrown the cash register at him if he could, but that would cause a mess, and possibly a scene if anyone else came in. He folded his arms, as much to keep them from throwing anything else as it was a defensive posture. "What dost thou want."  
  
Vanimórë calmly strode to the counter and set down a set of legal documents, and a set of airline tickets. Maglor read on the documents that the entire plaza where Turn Over A New Leaf was situated was now under the ownership of one Van Apollyon, and there was a termination of the rental agreement for his bookstore. Then he snatched up the tickets and looked at them. Alaska Airlines, Anchorage to Seattle. British Airways, Seattle to London.  
  
IcelandAir, London to Reykjavik.  
  
"What kind of game is this?" Maglor snarled. "I am not going anywhere with  _thee._ "  
  
"Yes, thou wilt." Vanimórë laughed. "I have a gift for thee."


	7. Let the Games Begin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Valentine's Day bondage shenanigans Sören is referring to can be read about in the short story [_Bundin við hjarta þitt_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17687687) if you're curious. ;D

**Let the Games Begin**

 

A week later, Vigdís, Páll, Sólveig and Sigurjón stopped at Sören and Dooku's cabin in the late morning, before they'd be flying out of Akureyri to Reykjavik, and then from Reykjavik to the United States. They had just given a copy of the keys to the renters, and had brunch with Sören and Dooku. They were leaving their sheepdog Auli behind at the cottage because of the travel restrictions on pets, with an agreement made with their renters that included care and feeding instructions, and still wanted Sören and Dooku to check in on the dog.

When brunch was over and Sören and Dooku went back to the cabin, they looked down the street as they were pulling in, seeing two cars parked at the cottage, a Bentley and a Jaguar. Sören let out a low whistle.

"Shall we greet our new neighbors?" Dooku asked.

Sören looked at the time and shook his head. "I gotta bounce," he said. He felt Dooku's cringe at the use of slang and cackled, patting him. "I have a class to teach literally as fast as I can get back into town." He ran a nervous hand through his curls. "I really should have asked you to drop me off at the studio while we were in town but I wasn't thinking."

Dooku gave a small, smug smile. "You're still recovering from this morning?"

Sören nodded, with a grin that lit up his whole face. "That was an amazing blowjob." Sören snickered. "I still can't believe you never gave head before me. You're a fucking pro."

"I learned from the best." Dooku gave him a soft, sweet kiss. They could still taste each other's cum after breakfast, and Sören made a little purring noise at the mingled flavors.

"Anyway," Sören said, getting out of Dooku's car and into his own jeep, "you could go say hi to the new people?"

Dooku shook his head. "I'll wait until you get back, if you don't mind."

Sören patted him again - Dooku was shy and introverted, it was a miracle he'd warmed to Vigdís and Páll like he did. It was something Sören sort of understood, he was a bit more outgoing than Dooku but had some degree of anxiety around new people. "I don't mind at all, I understand, _elskan_."

"Thank you for understanding." Dooku kissed Sören's hand.

"Just... remember that I work kinda late tonight." Sören's last class of the evening was six PM, an adult ceramics class. There was a small shed outside the studio building where Sören had a kiln set up, though he'd likely be doing the firings over the weekend. "I should be back at a decent enough hour but I'll want to have dinner and I keep getting pings from the fam so I'm gonna need to go on chat tonight for a bit. Hopefully our new neighbors don't go to bed really early."

"Hopefully not."

Sören gave Dooku a quick kiss, and then he was off.

 

_

 

When Sören got back from the studio, he washed up first, and then he and Dooku sat down to a slow cooked homemade stew with dumplings. Snúdur whined even though he'd just been fed.

"I know it's been 84 years since you've had food," Sören teased the cat, even though he couldn't understand him. Snúdur's response was an even more pitiful wail.

Dooku used the Force to retrieve the can of cat treats he kept on hand, and gave one to Snúdur who snatched it up immediately and then came back to sniff, his front paws on Dooku's knee, wanting more.

"Dear _Force._ " Dooku chuckled, and tossed down a second cat treat. "And then that's it, you greedy thing."

After the second treat, Snúdur of course wanted another, and didn't get one, and sat expectantly, giving them the saddest eyes ever. In a trollish mood, Sören made a big show of enjoying his stew. "MMMMMMMMMMMM. This is soooooo goooooood."

"MROWWWWWRRRRRR."

Dooku shook with silent laughter. "You're terrible."

Sören beamed. "I know."

Sören took care of the dishes, and then he flomped on the couch as Dooku sat across the room at his desk, working on the latest chapter of his novel. Snúdur proceeded to climb on Sören like he owned him, and Sören held the cat in his arms, which Snúdur loved, purring away. Petting him with one hand as he went on his laptop with the other, Sören opened the chat server and waited.

After Dooku moved to Iceland, his unofficially adopted daughter Leja had the idea of starting a chat server for the family since they were scattered around. On the server were of course Dooku and Sören, as well as Leja and her husband Hans Sulu, and their friends Joaquin "Qui-Gon" Gonzalez and his husband Oberon "Obi" Cenobie. Also on the server were Sören's sister Margrét and fraternal twin brother Dagnýr and their cousin Ari, Dagnýr's husband Matt who happened to be Leja's son, and Sören's best friend Mary Frances "Frankie" O'Riordan, who was engaged to be married to Margrét, with a wedding planned this summer. Every single one of them were Force-sensitive, a secret they had to keep from the rest of the world, which increased the feeling of being a tight-knit family. The chat was in English, for the courtesy of the non-Icelandic-speakers around. It had been four days since Sören had been in the chat room, as he'd been painting feverishly in his spare time, and his e-mail was starting to get flooded with ping notifications. Sören chuckled as he checked his most recent ping on the server and saw

 

 _Thursday_  
**[7:45 PM] Dagnýr:** this is a welfare check-in for @Sören

 **[7:51 PM] Dagnýr:** yoo hoo 🅱lease let us know you're OK

 **[8:20 PM] Dagnýr:** mkay well we're just gonna talk shit about you while you're gone. biotch.

 

It was now Friday. Still laughing, Sören began typing.

_Sören Sigurdsson is typing..._

**[8:38 PM] Dagnýr:**  owo what's this

 **[8:39 PM] Sören:** henlo

 **[8:40 PM] Sören:** I aten't dead

 **[8:43 PM] Margrét:** oh hey I actually have the night off. it's a fuckin miracle. HIIIIIIII

 **[8:45 PM] Sören:** *waves aggressively*

 **[8:46 PM] Margrét:** how's life up there in the sticks?

 **[8:47 PM] Sören:** ...sticky

 **[8:48 PM] Sören:** ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 **[8:50 PM] Margrét:** wow, I did not need that information

**[8:51 PM] Dagnýr:**

  
[Image: Jack Black is holding a sign that says STOP next to Elmo.]

**[8:53 PM] Sören:** listen you summoned me

 **[8:54 PM] Margrét:** ^ you summoned the shitposting memelord

 **[8:55 PM] Sören:** I was painting for a few days and I come back to like 69420 pings or smth

 **[8:56 PM] Dagnýr:** I WORRY ABOUT YOU JESUS CHRIST

 **[8:57 PM] Sören:** why do you worry about Jesus Christ?

 **[8:58 PM] Margrét:** (again, you summoned the shitposting memelord. this is on you, Dag)

 **[8:59 PM] Sören:** but seriously, I'M FINE, STOP WORRYING

 **[9:01 PM] Ari:** Sören! *hugs*

 **[9:02 PM] Sören:** ARIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII *huggles*

 **[9:04 PM] Sören:** SO ANYWAY what's new with you guys

 **[9:05 PM] Dagnýr:** I am... giving a TED talk next week.

 **[9:06 PM] Sören:** on what, being a dork

 **[9:07 PM] Matt:** LMAO

 **[9:08 PM] Dagnýr:** you shut up

 **[9:09 PM] Sören:** you summoned me

 **[9:11 PM] Dagnýr:** then perish uwu

  
[Image: the eyes of Barack Obama, the "then perish" reaction pic.]

**[9:12 PM] Sören:** OK, so what's your TED talk _really_ about

 **[9:13 PM] Dagnýr:** The same subject I wrote my doctoral thesis on. The possibility of alternate universes. String theory, quantum mechanics, bla bla.

 **[9:15 PM] Sören:** I love how you have like a Ph.D. from Oxford which you got at an obscenely young age and have rubbed elbows with Neil Degrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking and you're in here posting owo-speak and shit

 **[9:17 PM] Dagnýr:** I do it for science.

 **[9:18 PM] Sören:** you are super 🅱rofessional

 **[9:19 PM] Dagnýr:** The professionalest. This is a word now.

 **[9:20 PM] Ari:** So you've been painting for four days? Can we see WIPs?

 **[9:21 PM] Sören:** No?

 **[9:22 PM] Ari:** boo

 **[9:23 PM] Sören:** how's the fanfic writing?

 **[9:24 PM] Ari:** Frustrating. Writing is hard, yo.

 **[9:25 PM] Sören:** *paps*

 **[9:26 PM] Ari:** I'm working on a story about the Númenóreans.

 **[9:32 PM] Sören:** ah.

 **[9:33 PM] Ari:** That went right over your head, didn't it?

 **[9:35 PM] Sören:** it's been a hot minute since the last time I read the LOTR trilogy. like... I was in secondary school. I _think_.

 **[9:36 PM] Ari:** Well, you at least remember they're from Tolkien.

 **[9:38 PM] Sören:** they're from NumaNumastan, right

 **[9:39 PM] Ari:** *facepalm*

 **[9:40 PM] Sören:** MAIAR HEE

 **[9:41 PM] Sören:** MAIAR WHO

 **[9:42 PM] Sören:** MAIAR HEE

 **[9:43 PM] Sören:** MAIAR HA HA

 **[9:44 PM] Ari:** SÖREN NO

 **[9:45 PM] Dagnýr:** oh my _god_

 **[9:46 PM] Matt:** thanks I hate it

 **[9:47 PM] Frankie:** that makes all of us, I think

 **[9:48 PM] Sören:** *innocent face*

 **[9:49 PM] Margrét:** hey guys sorry I was gone for a bit, I had to piss and then I got sidetracked

 **[9:50 PM] Sören:** thanks for sharing

 **[9:51 PM] Margrét:** lemme scroll up, see what I missed

 **[9:55 PM] Margrét:** oh no

 **[9:56 PM] Margrét:** GODDAMMIT SÖREN

  
[Image: the "Pizza Fire" reaction GIF]

**[9:57 PM] Sören:** :D

  
[Image: the "Elmo Satan" reaction GIF]

**[9:58 PM] Dooku:** What has my husband done now?

 **[9:59 PM] Sören:** *innocent face*

 **[10:01 PM] Dooku:** Sören, my love, nobody buys your innocent face. Least of all myself.

 **[10:02 PM] Dooku:** Also, we need to get going if we're not wishing to intrude on our new neighbours at a completely indecent hour. It's already a bit late.

 **[10:03 PM] Sören:** tru dat

 **[10:04 PM] Dooku:** Those are not even words.

 **[10:05 PM] Sören:** inorite

 **[10:06 PM] Dooku:** *facepalm*

 **[10:07 PM] Sören:** gimme like five minutes tho? I haven't talked to these shits in four days and they *~worry~*

 **[10:08 PM] Dooku:** Fair enough. Five minutes.

 **[10:10 PM] Ari:** Wait what? New neighbours? Did something happen to Vigdís and Páll?

 **[10:12 PM] Sören:** they're visiting family in the States, and we got people from Airbnb that just got here today

 **[10:13 PM] Sören:** LMAO you ought to fucking see it

 **[10:14 PM] Sören:** there is a Bentley _and a Jaguar_ up in that bitch

 **[10:15 PM] Ari:** _**whomst**_ the fuck

 **[10:16 PM] Sören:** exactly

 **[10:17 PM] Dooku:** Ahem. _It has been longer than five minutes._

 **[10:18 PM] Sören:** all right, I'm coming

 **[10:19 PM] Dooku:** ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

**[10:21 PM] Margrét:**

  
[Image: The "holy water eye drops" reaction pic.]

_

Although Vigdís and Páll's cottage was only fifteen minutes away on foot, and it was still daylight outside and Sören and Dooku were in good shape, they opted to take Sören's jeep down the street and not delay things any further. Dooku had a plate of blueberry scones he'd baked for the occasion, carefully resting on his lap.

Both the Bentley and the Jaguar were in front of the cottage, and the lights were on, indicating that their new neighbors were probably still awake and thus it wasn't completely horrible of them to be showing up at this hour. Sören and Dooku got out of the jeep, and Sören walked ahead of Dooku, giving a few cautious knocks at the door.

After a minute, the door opened a crack, and then opened all the way. Auli came bounding over, barking excitedly, and Sören reached down to pet him, and when he looked up he gasped.

"Van?"

Even though he wasn't wearing any makeup, and they had only encountered each other the one time and that had been four years ago, it was a night to remember, one that permanently etched those full, sensuous lips, the lovely face, the long dark hair and the tall, lithe, pale body into Sören's memory.

Van smiled. "Sören."

"You- you remember my name." Sören couldn't believe it, and his face lit up.

"And you remember mine." He laughed softly. "I daresay we made an impression on each other."

Dooku looked at Van awkwardly, and then at Sören. "You two know each other?"

Sören looked down at his Doc Martens, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. _This will be an interesting conversation later._ "Jæja, we, uh, met briefly four years ago."

"All too briefly," Van said, his words in a tone almost like a caress, "but it was memorable."

"Indeed it was." Sören's face burned, and he felt himself getting hard thinking about it - which across their Force bond told Dooku quite a lot.

 _I see,_ Dooku spoke into Sören's mind.

Sören put his hand on Dooku's shoulder. "Van, this is my husband, Nicolae Dooku."

Dooku proferred the plate of scones. "We live down the street, and wanted to say hello and that you can let us know if you need anything. I'm retired, and my husband works in town but usually has mornings and evenings free."

"Thank you for that," Van said, taking the scones with one hand, and keeping a still-excited, panting Auli under control with the other. "You're not from around here?"

"London," Dooku said. "I've been living out here since May-June 2018. I'll have citizenship in another two years."

Van gave a little cryptic smile, but though he was shielded, Sören knew what it was about.

"Thank you again," Van said. "I'd offer to have you both come in for tea, but my companion called it a night fairly early and I don't want to disturb them."

"I understand," Sören said. "I'm sorry we came here so late, I've had a bit of a long day."

"It would be nice to get together sometime soon, perhaps," Van said.

"Yes, it would." Sören nodded. "Maybe stop by this weekend and we can plan something!" Then he took Dooku's arm. "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Van. It's good to see you again!" He waved with his free hand as they headed back to the jeep.

They said nothing in the jeep on the short drive back - Sören could tell Dooku was sitting with the knowledge that Sören and Van knew each other in the biblical sense, and he was torn between feeling a bit awkward about it and feeling a strange sense of arousal at Sören's mental movies of the event.

Finally, once they were back in the cabin, Sören said, "Yes, Van and I shagged once."

"It was a one-night stand and you managed to remember each other's names, so I imagine -"

Sören had him sit down, and sat in the rocking chair across from the couch. "So a week ago I told you about how I kind of hit bottom after Alejandro and I broke up." It hurt to even say his name. "I was having a lot of promiscuous, and frequently anonymous, sex, doing a lot of E. Giving fucks, and not giving a fuck at the same time." A bitter smile. "They were mostly quick, we got our rocks off, we were done, that was the end of it. Van was... the exception to that."

Sören sat back in the rocking chair, rocking slowly. "Do you remember how we experimented with you tying me up on Valentine's Day?"

"...Yes."

"That wasn't my first time being bound." Sören let Dooku see more of that encounter across their bond. "I actually let Van restrain me, even though I normally wouldn't do such a thing with strangers, and after an incident with Justin I didn't go there again until you. Anyway... he took care of me that night, when I was in a lot of pain. He was the first guy to make me actually feel _special_ after Alejandro. I felt safe with him. Enough that when it was over, I let him know what was troubling me, and he told me I should get out of Reykjavik and move to the UK. So in a way, Van is directly responsible for why you and I met - that smile he made when you said you're from London, he knows I met you because of that advice. I owe him a debt of gratitude." Sören leaned and took Dooku's hands. "I don't, however, want to make things awkward with you."

"I think I'm OK with it," Dooku said, nodding. "You've had an extensive, er, history, and it wouldn't be fair of me to ask you to not have any contact with anyone you'd ever be intimate with, or then you'd be blocking contact with a number of people, I imagine."

Sören laughed, and squeezed his hands.

Then Dooku continued, "But also..." He squeezed Sören's hands back. "I'm glad you had that." He kissed Sören's hands. "This Van character took care of something that is precious to me, and helped it get on its way to me. So I, too, am grateful. I don't see the harm in being neighborly."

"Good." Sören got up from the rocking chair and threw his arms around Dooku. "That's very mature of you."

"I would hope to have a mature response to things at my age." Dooku chuckled. Then he frowned. "There was one time when I wasn't particularly reasonable... in the months you and I were apart, last year, I met a gentleman named Mace. We were set up by Qui-Gon, but nothing happened between us, no interest on either side, and Qui told me later he did it to make me realize I was too hung up on you. Anyway... Mace told me that one of his most memorable Grindr experiences was with a young man named Sören, with a Prince Albert piercing. There weren't too many people in the Greenwich area fitting that description -"

"Oh _dear god._ " Sören facepalmed, laughing. "Jæja, that was one of the very last one-night-stands I had, actually."

"And I was still raw in my grief from having pushed you away, and even though this encounter with you apparently happened well before you and I ever met, I ended up lashing out. No harm was done, but I was very ashamed of my response later. I'm not normally _like that._ Yet it was, as I said, from a place of grief. I wasn't thinking rationally. I'll admit to being _protective_ of you - this Justin you were involved with, my path had better never cross with his. Van, on the other hand... I don't see the point in resentment."

"I appreciate that." Sören hugged him again. "And I'm glad you have that kind of confidence in my love for you. I don't ever want to do anything that hurts you."

"I know." Dooku got up from the couch, and took Sören's face in his hands, kissing him.

Soon Sören and Dooku were in bed, making slow, sweet love, with Sören on his back, Dooku on top of him, Sören's arms and legs wrapped around him, holding his husband with all of him, lost in a silken haze of desire.

Towards the end, Sören felt overcome with emotion. "I love you so much," Sören whispered, as Dooku kissed his neck, knowing just how he liked it, moving faster inside him. "I love you so, so much. I'm so glad I found you."

Dooku kissed him deeply and took his hands, then his lips grazed Sören's jaw and he husked, "Come for me."

Sören did, screaming loud enough he hoped the neighbors didn't hear. Gratified by the sight and sound of his beloved's climax, feeling Sören pulse around him, Dooku gave into his own release, and Sören purred as he felt it across their Force bond, amplifying his own.

They snuggled, and Snúdur hopped up on the bed to cuddle near them, his paws kneading Sören.

 _Life has a funny way of working out,_ Sören thought to himself, thinking of the painting that was hanging in Logifugl Listaskóli, the one he'd made as a tribute to Van's advice, the dancer with the veils that each held a universe. Thinking of those veils, and the stars, he drifted off to sleep.

He dreamed of his mother, for the first time in years. Usually when she came to him, it was as he remembered her before her death - T-shirt and jeans, goofy, playful. She was all dignity now, dressed like a princess, bathed in light. _There is a storm coming, child._ Visions of fire, a drop of blood, the sea, scrolls in an alphabet he didn't understand, a sword.


	8. Don't Call My Name, Alejandro

**Don't Call My Name, Alejandro**

 

At the sound of their alarm the next morning, Sören and Dooku groaned, not wanting to get out of their warm, cozy bed, snuggled up together. Dooku reached to turn off the alarm and then he put his arm back around Sören, who nuzzled his chest hair.

"I wish I could stay in bed with you all day," Sören said, "but I have a couple classes."

Dooku nodded. He kissed Sören's forehead, and then tilted Sören's chin up and kissed his lips. Soon the kiss deepened, their tongues swirling, and the two men hardened right up.

"You may not be able to stay in bed with me all day," Dooku said between kisses, "but we could get your day off to the proper start."

Sören grinned, and kissed him back. "Mmmm, what do you have in mind?"

Kissing passionately, laying on their sides, they held each other, cocks rubbing together. Sören ran his fingers through the hair on Dooku's chest and arms and thighs, played with his nipples, leaned in to kiss them, until Dooku rolled Sören onto his back and lavished kisses all over Sören's body, leaving Sören breathless, arching to him. Dooku sucked Sören's cock until he was just about to come, then teasingly withdrew purchase from his mouth, and licked and nibbled Sören's thighs, making Sören howl with frustration.

"Please..."

Dooku looked up with a smug little smile. "Please what, love?"

"Please..." Sören gave a whimper. "I need it in me so bad..."

Dooku's response was to stick his tongue in Sören's ass, finding the prostate right away, teasing further with slow, deliberate lashes of his tongue. Sören thrashed and screamed. "Dammit, Nico... I said I need it in me..."

Dooku couldn't resist, pausing his licking for a moment. "Yes, you said 'it'. You didn't say 'what.'" He resumed licking, a little faster than before, but still keeping Sören's orgasm just out of reach, sharpening the edge.

Sören's balls tightened, his cock aching as Dooku's tongue worked its magic on that sweet spot inside him. "Nico... please... give me your cock... fuck me..."

"Mmmmm." Dooku paused again. "I'll think about it." There was a mischievous gleam in his dark eyes as he continued lapping away in Sören's channel, building Sören's tension higher and higher, until Sören was almost sobbing, going out of his mind with need.

Finally Dooku relented, taking a few licks at the head of Sören's cock to taste his precum, and he came up to kiss Sören, retrieving their lube and readying Sören with slick fingers. At last he pushed inside Sören, who panted "yes, yes", and when he was all the way in he paused, the two of them looking into each other's eyes. Dooku stroked Sören's face and kissed him deeply, and then propped Sören's legs on his shoulders and drove into him with power that would be impressive on a younger man, never mind someone at seventy. Dooku usually liked to take it slow, but every now and again they both needed to _fuck_ , needed that hard fucking like animals in rut. Sören loved it, clawing him hard enough to draw blood, crying out "more, more, _fuck_ that's so good." He reached down to stroke himself, and Dooku playfully swatted his hand away.

"You're going to come on this cock," Dooku growled.

Sören shuddered, loving it when he got dominant like this. A few minutes later Sören was ready, shaking, making inhuman noises, his eyes wild. Dooku's hand ran over Sören's chest, thumb lazily rubbing a nipple. He pinched it and rasped, "Come for me."

" _Nico!_ " Sören spurted all over Dooku's chest and abs, and one more hard thrust was all it took to send Dooku over the edge, groaning "Sören..." as he gave in to his own release, shooting deep inside Sören, who moaned, gratified.

They snuggled some more, savoring the bliss. Sören loved the smile on Dooku's face, especially knowing how sad he was for so many years before they got together, and how sad he'd been in the few months they were apart last year - after Dooku had pushed him away, afraid that he was too old, not wanting to burden Sören with the eventuality of his mortality. But Dooku was not only in excellent condition for his age, likely to live at least another ten to twenty years without too many problems, Sören had made it clear to him that he was more concerned about the quality of their years together than the quantity, reminding Dooku that he could go first, dying young. Life had no guarantees, and they could only take what they were given. Dooku accepted that, and here they were, determined to make the most of every day, living life to the fullest together, in whatever time they would have.

Sören traced the _vegvísir_ tattoo that Dooku had gotten on his left wrist on their one-year anniversary in November - the one piece of ink he had, an Icelandic magical stave intended to help the bearer find their way through rough weather - chosen for the symbolism of their love finding a way, against all odds. He brought the wrist up to his lips to kiss, a silent acknowledgment of how grateful he was that they were both here, in this moment, together.

Then Sören looked at the clock and groaned. "I better get my arse in gear, I have a class at quarter after eleven."

"I'll make breakfast."

They shared one last kiss, and then Dooku went to the kitchen, naked, and also naked Sören got his laptop to check e-mail, and decided to pay a visit to his family's chat server.

 

 **[9:13 AM] Sören:** h-hewwo

 **[9:15 AM] Ari:** It's a Sören!

 **[9:16 AM] Sören:** hey hey

 **[9:17 AM] Leja:** Well good morning! I haven't seen you in awhile!

 **[9:18 AM] Sören:** hi! I've been busy, painting, classes at Logifugl, you know, the usual. how are you, Leja?

 **[9:20 AM] Leja:** About as well as can be expected.

 **[9:21 AM] Sören:** *nods* how's Hans doing?

 **[9:22 AM] Leja:** Also about as well as can be expected.

 **[9:24 AM] Leja:** I've been receiving more hate mail from Knights of Ren fans.

 **[9:26 AM] Sören:** ugh, Kylo's got a bit of a cult following from behind bars now, huh? like Charles Manson.

 **[9:28 AM] Ari:** ~~except Charles Manson probably made better music~~

 **[9:29 AM] Sören:** *snerk*

 **[9:31 AM] Leja:** Yes. Have you seen that recent interview with him, by the way?

 **[9:32 AM] Sören:** I have not.

 **[9:33 AM] Leja:** It _might_ be on the Internet by now. He's saying he stabbed Hans because Hans never accepted his "aesthetic". Which first of all, isn't true. Second of all if it was true, it doesn't excuse what he did. He has shown absolutely _no_ remorse, you can see how cold-blooded unrepentant he is in this interview, and yet all these teen girls think he's a hero and want to shag him. It's disgusting.

 **[9:36 AM] Sören:** ...ew

 **[9:39 AM] Leja:** And I get to hear things like "if you were a better mother, maybe he wouldn't have done drugs." As if I could control what he did at twenty-five no longer living with me.

 **[9:41 AM] Leja:** Anyway, I don't mean to ruin your morning -

 **[9:42 AM] Sören:** no, it's OK, I know you need to vent. we have this chat room for a reason, you know? we can support each other around the world. <3

 **[9:44 AM] Leja:** You're such a sweetheart. *pinches your cheeks*

 

Dooku, now wearing pajamas, brought over a plate of food to Sören, who thanked him, and Dooku sat at his desk, going on his own laptop. Sören knew that Dooku was telling himself he'd be working on the new chapter, but like all writers he was procrastinating first, and Sören smirked when he saw Dooku appear in the chat room.

 **[9:46 AM] Leja:** Dad!

 **[9:47 AM] Dooku:** Good morning, Leja.

 **[9:50 AM] Dooku:** Oh dear, I just read all of that. You know you can call me too, if you need any assurance in the sound of my own voice.

 **[9:51 AM] Leja:** I appreciate that. I'm also looking forward to seeing you again at Margrét and Frankie's wedding in August.

 **[9:52 AM] Sören:** yo I am HYPED

 **[9:53 AM] Sören:** I'm gonna embarrass the shit out of my sister with some drunk-ass karaoke

 **[9:54 AM] Ari:** The more things change...

 **[9:55 AM] Ari:** SPEAKING of things changing, have you met the new neighbours?

 **[9:56 AM] Ari:** Are they Kardashians?

 **[9:57 AM] Sören:** LMAO

 **[9:58 AM] Sören:** we met one of the new neighbours. the other was I guess asleep or smth when we got there

 **[10:00 AM] Dooku:** Indeed, we arrived rather late.

 **[10:01 AM] Sören:** Oops.

 **[10:02 AM] Dooku:** :squint:

 **[10:03 AM] Sören:** but one of them, we met, yes.

 **[10:04 AM] Sören:** except

 **[10:04 AM] Sören:** ha ha

 **[10:04 AM] Sören:** I, uh, already knew him

 **[10:05 AM] Ari:** o rly

 **[10:06 AM] Sören:** so you remember when I was living in Reykjavik with Margrét back in 2015?

 **[10:07 AM] Ari:** When you were partying and miserable? Yes.

 **[10:08 AM] Sören:** so, there was this guy

 **[10:09 AM] Sören:** his name was Van. notable because of all the one-night-stands I've had, I've only remembered a few names.

 **[10:10 AM] Sören:** this one was memorable because it was the first time after Alejandro where I actually felt cared about, if that makes any sense at al

 **[10:12 AM] Sören:** it was a very, very good night

 **[10:13 AM] Sören:** so much so that I kind of let my guard down around him and he asked me what was bothering me and I told him

 **[10:14 AM] Sören:** and he told me to leave Reykjavik and go to London

 **[10:15 AM] Sören:** so in a way Van is directly responsible for why I (mostly) stopped that self-destructive behaviour and, eventually, found Nico

 **[10:16 AM] Sören:** and now, he's living up the street till the end of August!

 **[10:17 AM] Sören:** which is kinda cool because at the time I regretted not getting his contact info. he seemed like someone I'd like to be friends with.

 **[10:19 AM] Ari:** Well, that's interesting. What are the odds of that?

 **[10:21 AM] Sören:** exactly. it's a weird little coincidence, that.

 **[10:22 AM] Ari:** What does your other half think of this?

 **[10:23 AM] Dooku:** I told Sören I don't have an issue with it.

 **[10:24 AM] Ari:** That's good.

 **[10:25 AM] Ari:** Yay for no awkward drama with the new neighbours.

 **[10:26 AM] Sören:** well... that's only one half of them. I haven't met the other person yet, I don't know how they'll feel about Van and I having had a smol history. hopefully they'll be as mature about it.

 **[10:28 AM] Leja:** (Yours truly in an open marriage, rants something something possessiveness something something monogamy. Also *blows a kiss in Margrét's general direction whenever she gets online*)

 **[10:30 AM] Sören:** yes _thank you for the reminder that you shag my sister_

 **[10:31 AM] Leja:** I saw the chat logs last night, Margrét thinks we owe you one.

**[10:32 AM] Sören:**

 

  
[Image: The "holy water eye drops" reaction pic.]

**[10:35 AM] Leja:** Let's just say I have reasons for looking forward to the wedding in August besides seeing you all again...

**[10:36 AM] Sören:**

 

  
[Image: Jack Black is holding a sign that says STOP next to Elmo.]

**[10:37 AM] Sören:** on that note

 **[10:37 AM] Sören:** I gotta bounce

 **[10:37 AM] Sören:** I have art classes to teach and shit

 **[10:38 AM] Ari:** OK, will talk to you later! Have fun!

 **[10:39 AM] Leja:** *hugs*

**[10:40 AM] Sören:**

 

  
[Image: A grown man on a child's tricycle, wearing a shirt that says "Life Sucks", captioned "See you later, shit lords."]

 

Sören got up, and put on clothes - a Nine Inch Nails "Pretty Hate Machine" T-shirt, skinny jeans, his usual Doc Martens. He decided to leave his hair down instead of putting it in a man bun, and came over to Dooku, who was staring at a blinking cursor on Word, frowning.

"Muse isn't awake yet, huh?" Sören asked, patting him.

"I think maybe if I get out for a bit it might get the creative juices flowing." Dooku looked at the window near his desk, where Snúdur was watching birds and basking in the morning sun. "It's looking like another beautiful day today, the perfect day for a bike ride."

Dooku and Sören both had motorbikes parked behind the cabin, and sometimes went on day trips driving around the Icelandic countryside together, and sometimes Dooku went riding by himself which Sören encouraged because he felt it was important for people in relationships to still do things on their own. "Good," Sören said, nodding. "I agree, today is a great day for that."

"Yes, I think I'll get changed for that now."

Sören's encouragement of Dooku's motorbike riding wasn't simply because it was something fun to do, but the thought of him riding around, looking badass on one always got him aroused, especially now as Dooku changed into a pair of leather pants for riding. Sören let out a little moan as he ogled the way the leather pants hugged the older man's firm ass.

"Fuck." Sören growled. "I better go before I, uh. Skip out on classes and piss people off."

Dooku smirked. "Have a good afternoon." He gave Sören a quick kiss. "I love you."

"Love you too." Sören grabbed his ass on the way out.

 

_

 

Sören had two adult classes, one painting and one a crafts class - this week it was starting a papier-mache project that would continue the next few weeks. In between the classes and afterwards, he he went to the kiln to fire pottery from yesterday's ceramics class. Though Sören's primary method of visual art was drawing and painting, he'd learned ceramics in London and developed a taste for the medium of clay as well; his dreams of opening his own art studio for anyone to take classes regardless of ability, just come and have fun, always included a kiln. There was something about the process of transformation by fire that appealed to him.

After the classes were over and he set the kiln for the second firing, making a note to himself to come back in four hours and turn off the kiln, Sören looked at what work he'd showcased on the walls of Logifugl Listaskóli. There was a painting he'd made of his mother, turning her into something like a goddess as a loving tribute - he remembered his mother used to embroider, and here she was working on embroidery, and her sampler was in hyper-saturated colors, the people and animals in them leaping off and coming to life.

He thought about the dream he had last night.

That dream gave him the urge to drive out to the graveyard at Naustahofdi. He stopped first at a store to pick up a bouquet of flowers - white roses with baby's breath. He approached his parents' graves slowly; coming here always made him a bit emotional, feeling leaden, like every step was a walk towards the doom that had claimed them both far too young. He now, at thirty-four, had outlived the ages both his parents were when they died.

When Sören got to his parents' graves, to lay down the roses between them, he noticed that for once, his mother's grave wasn't empty. Someone had left a small ceramic jar of violets, and the jar had a curious eight-pointed star painted onto it, not dissimilar to the flaming star Sören had painted in his first painting, of the phoenixes. "Huh," Sören said as he stooped down. He reached for the violets to see if someone had left a little note tag or anything with them, and then across his mind's eye, a series of images flashed.

_A little girl is flying a kite near the Dimmuborgir, and then walks around by herself, exploring._

_The girl is screaming, crying hysterically, seeing something that frightens her._

_A man, her father, runs to her. He's trying desperately to console her. "Brynhildur. Brynhildur, mammi and pabbi are right here. You're safe. No one's there. No one will hurt you."_

Sören stared at the name _Brynhildur_ on his mother's grave, wondering what _that_ was about. Even though he'd lived with the Force all his life and had experienced visionary flashes, it was still difficult to tell if this was something legitimate or if this was just his imagination _being you dreamed about her last night, maybe your brain just_ wants _you to think there's something going on._

In the distance, a raven croaked.

 

_

 

After the visit to the graveyard, thinking about his mother's death, and speculating on how his life would have been different if his parents had lived and he hadn't been raised by his abusive aunt and uncle, Sören was in the mood for more somber music driving back to the cottage, from Akureyri into Svalbarðseyri.

 _Love, love is a verb_  
_Love is a doing word_  
_Fearless on my breath_  
_Gentle impulsion_  
_Shakes me, makes me lighter_  
_Fearless on my breath_  
_Teardrop on the fire_  
_Fearless on my breath_

As the instrumental part of "Teardrop" continued and Sören pulled over his jeep in front of the cottage, he saw Auli being walked on a leash out of the corner of his eye. The sight of Auli always made him smile, the dog's happiness in simple things like walking and playing was infectious.

Then Sören looked up and his smile vanished, his jaw dropped as he saw a face he hadn't seen in years, but would recognize anywhere.

It was Alejandro.

Unmistakably, positively Alejandro, that face haunting his dreams - and, admittedly, occasionally his sexual fantasies - for years. He was dressed in all black, which was typical. A few strands of the dark hair to the middle of his back were blowing in the slight breeze, and the silver-grey eyes met Sören's, holding in recognition.

Alejandro paused in his tracks, and Sören sat there in his jeep in front of his cottage, feeling like he couldn't move, couldn't breathe.

When the song got to the part

_Water is my eye  
Most faithful mirror_

Sören turned off the engine and climbed out of the jeep. Alejandro was still standing there, waiting, and Auli excitedly barked and wagged his tail at Sören.

"Sören," Alejandro called out.

Sören could feel the tightness in his face - that the stunned look he'd had was now a withering glare, the memory of the breakup roaring back to him. His fury was white-hot, ready to explode, _WHY is he here, how DARE he show up here_ , and he opened his mouth again, about to let forth a string of Icelandic expletives that would make a drunken Viking blush. But he couldn't make words, his throat parched, and instead the fire seething within him turned to ice. He silently turned away and proceeded to walk into the cottage, not looking back, quietly closing the door behind him instead of slamming it, as if to show Alejandro _I don't care_ , even though he was, in fact, far from indifferent.

Dooku wasn't home yet, which was just as well. Sören flopped down on the couch and for a moment just sat with his face buried in his hands, feeling like he needed to cry, but the tears wouldn't come. He was just in shock.

Sören found himself rocking back and forth, face still in his hands, shaking, feeling like he wasn't entirely there. Snúdur gave a meow of concern and hopped up next to Sören, headbutting him and flomping onto him as if to say _it's OK_. Sören absent-mindedly began to rub the cat's belly, soothed by the sound of the deep purring.

It was enough that Sören picked his head up and looked at the time. Being brought back to himself also brought on another wave of rage, but throwing things around the cabin wouldn't accomplish anything, and it would just scare the cat.

Sören took a deep breath. He had to blow off some steam, _now_ , and he knew what he could do. Vent.

 

_Sören Sigurdsson is typing..._

**[4:19 PM] Margrét:** hey there!

 **[4:20 PM] Frankie:** 420 whatchu smokin

 **[4:21 PM] Sören:** I need a stiff drink instead

 **[4:22 PM] Margrét:** oh no what happened

 **[4:23 PM] Margrét:** I saw the chat log from this morning, was there neighbour drama?

 **[4:25 PM] Sören:** ...yes, but not what you'd expect

 **[4:27 PM] Dagnýr:** Oh boy.

 **[4:30 PM] Sören:** I found out who Van's companion is.

 **[4:31 PM] Sören:** it's my ex Alejandro

 **[4:34 PM] Dagnýr:** NANI

**[4:36 PM] Margrét:**

 

  
[Image: the "confused Nick Young" reaction pic.]

**[4:39 PM] Sören:**

 

  
[Image: the Jackie Chan "my brain is full of fuck" reaction pic.]

**[4:41 PM] Sören:**

 

  
[Image: the Rage Guy "FFFFFFFFFFFUUU-" reaction pic.]

**[4:44 PM] Sören:** what I want to know is

 **[4:44 PM] Sören:** first of all, how is this even a thing that is happening

 **[4:46 PM] Sören:** because this is for reference what this motherfucker did to my heart five years ago

 

  
[Image: a GIF of a garbage truck picking up a trash can and the trash is flung all over the street instead of into the truck.]

**[4:48 PM] Sören:** (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

 **[4:50 PM] Frankie:** Do you feel unsafe at all? Like, do you think he's stalking you? Because Margrét and I will come up there from Reykjavik right now and KICK THIS GUY'S ARSE.

 **[4:52 PM] Margrét:** ^

 **[4:52 PM] Margrét:** :knife:

 **[4:48 PM] Sören:** I don't feel physically threatened, no. Alejandro was never once unkind to me while we were together

 **[4:50 PM] Sören:** it's the _how_ of our breakup. supposedly his family wanted him to marry some girl? because his brothers are dead and he needed to be a good boy and make an heir and all that shit

 **[4:51 PM] Sören:** he couldn't tell them to just, you know, fuck off

 **[4:53 PM] Sören:** he chose a "normal life" and his family's inheritance over me, which was, you know, _pretty fuckin cold_ after _almost five MOTHERFUCKING years together._

 **[4:55 PM] Frankie:** Jesus.

 **[4:57 PM] Sören:** and now? this is the "companion" that Van brought with him

 **[4:59 PM] Sören:** as in, Van, the guy who fucked me in the arse four years ago.

 **[5:01 PM] Margrét:** ~~I'm not even gonna make my usual snark about your sex life cos you're upset~~

 **[5:03 PM] Sören:** I would have. Married. This. Guy. if he'd asked me to. and instead he marries some girl he doesn't love, for the wrong reason, and now, five years later, either that's not a thing or he's cheating on her but either way?

 **[5:05 PM] Sören:** HE SHOULD NOT BE UP HERE.

 **[5:07 PM] Sören:** AND WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF COINCIDENCE IS IT FOR THE BOTH OF THEM TO BE UP HERE IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD AT THE SAME TIME

 **[5:09 PM] Margrét:** Well, this is why we wanted to know if you feel like he's stalking you. Because if you do, we will deal with it.

 **[5:11 PM] Dagnýr:** ^ Fuck my TED talk this week, I'll fly out and help in the family beatdown if necessary. Nobody fucks with my family.

 **[5:14 PM] Sören:** no listen none of that is necessary, I don't feel _scared_ of him or anything

 **[5:16 PM] Sören:** but I was looking forward to, you know, maybe getting to be friends with Van? and now that's gonna be, like, really awk.

 **[5:18 PM] Sören:** not to mention that this is a very small world up here and my chances of running into him again over the next two months are greater than zero and I can't and will not hide in the cabin to avoid him till the end of August. I have art classes to teach. but do I want to run into him? not particularly, no.

 **[5:20 PM] Sören:** this is one giant hot mess of a clusterfuck.

**[5:22 PM] Sören:**

 

  
[Image: Animated GIF of a cat knocking items off a table, captioned "fuck this, fuck that, fuck those too, fuck all these, fuck this thing in particular."]

**[5:24 PM] Frankie:** *all the hugs*

 **[5:25 PM] Dagnýr:** *holds you tight*

 **[5:26 PM] Margrét:** Family group hug.

 **[5:28 PM] Sören:** (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

 **[5:28 PM] Sören:** ┻━┻︵ヽ(`Д´)ﾉ︵ ┻━┻

 **[5:30 PM] Ari:** ┬──┬ ノ( ゜-゜ノ)

 **[5:32 PM] Frankie:** What do you need from us right now? Can we do anything else to help you, besides listen?

 **[5:34 PM] Sören:** I don't fuckin know man

 **[5:35 PM] Sören:** I hear Nico's bike so I gotta have this talk with him, too

 **[5:39 PM] Margrét:** *pets* OK. I'll be at the bar tonight working but every now and then I'll be checking on my phone and I'll have at least one break in the office, so DM me if you need to.

 **[5:41 PM] Frankie:** ^what my girl said. If you need me, I'm here. Hell just CALL me if you need to.

 **[5:43 PM] Dagnýr:** What they said.

 **[5:45 PM] Sören:** thanks, guys. I'll catch you later.

 

Dooku walked in, looking quietly radiant from his afternoon ride, but then he frowned when he saw his husband obviously in distress. "Sören," he said, walking right over to him. "Are you all right, darling?"

Sören shook his head, and buried his face in Dooku's stomach, as Dooku's strong arms circled around him. "I'm not OK right now, no. I'm not OK at all."

 

_

 

When Maglor got in the cottage, Vanimórë was sitting at the kitchen table, using a laptop. Auli was let loose, running over to his food and water dishes. Maglor loudly threw his keys on the table and then folded his arms and glared at Vanimórë.

After a minute or two Vanimórë finally acknowledged his presence, looking up. "Is something wrong?" Vanimórë asked mildly, even though he knew perfectly well something was indeed wrong.

"I saw him out there, just now."

"After avoiding him last night." Maglor hadn't been asleep when Sören and Dooku showed up to introduce themselves - as soon as he'd heard the front door, he'd closed the bedroom door and turned off the lights, giving the pretense of sleep.

"I told thee this would not work and I was right. Why would it? We have not seen each other in five years. And he is _married._ I do not know what thou thinkst this visit will accomplish, but breaking up a marriage does not sit well with me -"

"I have no intention of breaking up anyone's marriage."

"Then why do this? Why torment me like this?" Maglor shook his head. "Even if he _was not_ married, and even if he was _happy_ to see me again - which he very clearly is not... he is _mortal_. The entire reason why I ended things with him five years ago. Why things will not work."

"And yet, thou dost still care." Vanimórë met the silver fire of his gaze, and held it, challenging back. "Five years later, thy heart is still his."

Maglor let out a hiss of breath and turned away. Before he could stomp off back to his room, Vanimórë said, "Thou hast been brought here for a reason. I would like thee to give time for that reason to manifest itself."

"I should just leave here now. Thou didst shut down my bookstore, true, but I can find somewhere else to be. And surely, thou dost not have so much money that thou canst keep shutting me down and dragging me back here."

"I would not, if I were thee, underestimate how much money I have, and the scope of what I can do with that money." Vanimórë leaned back in his chair. "I will not force thee to stay, if thou dost truly feel that things are hopeless. But thou couldst have indeed not come along on this journey at all, thou couldst have run then, and thou didst not. Something in thee wants some kind of resolution, somehow. Thou knowest this."

Maglor turned back to Vanimórë, and after a moment he slowly stepped toward him, towering over the seated man.

"There is _no_ kind of resolution to be had here." Maglor had not raised his voice, and yet it was as if he were shouting, filling the room with its power. "This was over and done a long time ago, and thou didst have no right -"

"Thou didst say thyself that I am supposed to be dead, thou didst see me die, and yet, here I am, sitting before thee." Vanimórë held out his arms, inviting a blow if that was what Maglor felt he wanted to do, not that it would accomplish anything. "Why dost thou question what I think is possible?"

Maglor's jaw set. He continued to stand there, close enough to touch, close enough to strike out if he pleased. He did not. Their eyes locked, and Maglor could feel the heat in their gaze, the flame that had first been lit in Barad-dûr, ages ago.

Vanimórë stood, and he reached out, taking Maglor's chin into his hand, finger stroking the sensuous curve of his lower lip. "Thou art wounded. Thou art grieving. Thou art immortal, but not truly alive. I am here to preserve that fire in thee, now, as I did then."

A flash of rage in Maglor's eyes - the hatred, that he had not been allowed to break. That he had hungered for touch, for release, his deepest need laid bare. He had spent five years aching for Sören, and having him dangled just out of reach like this was a new kind of pain. He looked away, and Vanimórë brought that gaze back, fingers trailing down from Maglor's chin to his chest, teasing a nipple through the fabric of the black designer T-shirt he wore.

"I can give thee the comfort thou needest, as thou dost wait."

Maglor's mouth was open, breathing hard, part of him wanting to step back and get away, the rest of him yielding. He was trembling, already erect, remembering those first fevered nights in Barad-dûr, and the many years of their paths crossing, at times swords crossing, then rage becoming passion, transcendent.

"As thou dost wait for a resolution, I can offer thee myself, beauty." Vanimórë leaned in, and claimed Maglor's mouth with his.

Maglor groaned into the kiss, tongue swirling with Vanimórë's despite himself, cock throbbing, needing this like life needed to feed on life. He kissed Vanimórë back, harder.

"In the dark night of thy soul, we can still find light in the darkness." Vanimórë took Maglor's hands, and led him towards the bedroom.

Maglor had not been with anyone since Sören. As Vanimórë undressed him, hands roaming over the chiseled muscles, Maglor could no longer think, only feel, so starved for touch that he was quickly on his back, melting to Vanimórë as he lavished kisses over the fevered skin, knowing for a long time now what exactly the son of Fëanor liked, how to completely debauch him and make him hunger for more. Maglor hated that Vanimórë knew him like this, had such power over him - he hated that Vanimórë had given Sören the same treatment - and tonight he wanted it, _needed_ something for the pain, to at least temporarily replace his pain for Sören with a different kind of pain.

Vanimórë's clever tongue brushed his nipples, pebbling them, and when he suckled, Maglor arched to him, fisting the long dark hair with a wild cry. Already he was close to the edge, and Vanimórë had barely begun. He kissed and licked Maglor's stomach, kissed and nibbled a thigh, before drawing Maglor's cock into his mouth, sucking greedily.

Maglor was so pent up that he expected, and wanted, a quick release. Of course, Vanimórë did not give him one, sucking slowly with maddening swirls of his tongue, edging him again and again, visible amusement in the way Maglor writhed and cried out, begging to come, being _denied_. Vanimórë kept him on that edge until Maglor could no longer speak at all, almost crying, and then, at last, he took the cock out of his mouth and gave a teasing lick at the precum-slick head. "I want to taste thee."

When Maglor's cock was back in his mouth, Maglor let go, flying over the edge, erupting in Vanimórë's mouth. Vanimórë drank him, savoring like a fine wine, and then came up to kiss Maglor, letting him taste himself. He took their cocks in his hand, stroking them together, readying Maglor to hardness once more.

Between kisses, Vanimórë husked, "If thou couldst have thy beloved Sören right this moment, what wouldst thou do to him?"

Maglor shuddered. It was a particularly cruel form of teasing - he could not, in fact, have Sören, this moment or ever - but that didn't stop his mind from going in that direction, inflamed anew by the memories of the passion he'd shared with Sören, the way they'd become as in tune with each other's bodies as Vanimórë knew both of theirs. Indeed, the thought of Sören here with the two of them, the three caressing, writhing and crying out together - a mad delusion, and one he could not help, in his lust... Maglor shuddered again. "Everything."

"We need to start somewhere, so choose."

Maglor grabbed Vanimórë's wrists and rolled him onto his back, kissing him hard, like his life depended on that kiss. Maglor's fingers dipped into Vanimórë's channel, and at once he regretted that there was not oil or other lubricant at the bedside - he wondered if his landlords kept anything in the drawer - and to his surprise, Vanimórë was already slick and stretched, waiting, as if he'd been anticipating this and prepared himself. Thinking about that made Maglor's cock leap, twinging, precum pooling down the shaft. He kissed Vanimórë harder, who arched to him. "Yes, beauty. Take what thou needest."

Maglor pushed into him. He considered giving Vanimórë a taste of his own medicine, fucking him slowly, teasing him as he had been teased, but the wild, primal need was too great. He drove into Vanimórë, who matched his rhythm. "Yes, beautiful one. Take me as thou wouldst take Sören." Vanimórë kissed his neck and licked it, tongue trailing up from the jaw to the ridge of Maglor's ear, to the point, nibbling the tip before whispering, "As thou _wilt_ take Sören."

"Thou art mad."

" _Thou_ art mad, thou fool."

Maglor growled, sinking his teeth into Vanimórë's neck, driving into him with abandon, fully given over to the rutting fever, needing this as badly as he'd needed anything. He thought of Sören, laying under him like this, remembered the delicious noises Sören made, the way Sören held nothing back, completely surrendering to him, as he in turn surrendered as fully as he ever had with anyone save his own father and uncle, long ago. Sören was so like his father...

Notes from Vanimórë, now, crying out the way Maglor liked it, wanted to hear his lovers' pleasure. "Almost there, beauty," Vanimórë ground out.

Maglor kissed him hard, the two moaning together into the kiss. Maglor found himself slowing down, finding it in himself at last to tease, thinking of teasing Sören the same way, taking out five years of hunger, savoring to the last moment. And then Vanimórë began to work his inner muscles, his channel gripping Maglor's cock and squeezing, and all thought was scorched away, Maglor thrusting into him even harder than before, both men panting, crying out over the sound of their flesh slapping together, the bed rocking against the wall.

Vanimórë's hot breath on his neck, then a lick. "Come with me, pet."

Under any other circumstance Maglor would object to the use of the word _pet_ , possibly even with the sword, but here and now... their hands clasped as they climaxed together, kissing one last time, the world seeming to stop. As with every orgasm Maglor had, there was only the Music, only the Song, and he could hear Sören's again, wrapping around him, not letting him go.

When Maglor came to, Vanimórë was still holding him, petting him. A part of Maglor resented this, not wanting to be _pitied_ \- but he knew there was true desire on Vanimórë's part, this wasn't just an act of compassion. And Maglor had not felt warmth from another soul since he let Sören go. He cursed himself for his weakness, for not killing this man as he'd once vowed to do, but he lay there in Vanimórë's arms just the same, allowing himself what he needed, just this once.

Vanimórë took Maglor's chin in his hand again, making Maglor look into those violet eyes. "This will all work out, somehow. It will look very different from any assumption thou hast this moment. It will not be anything thou couldst have foreseen. But thou _wilt_ have what thou seekest."

"I do not even know anymore what I seek."

"Deep down, thou dost."

Maglor sighed, and closed his eyes. He rolled away from Vanimórë. "I need to be alone now, please."

Vanimórë got up, and put his clothes back on. He left Maglor's room without a word, and Maglor hugged the body pillow, not wanting Vanimórë, or anyone, to see him cry.


	9. Heart Shaped Box

**Heart Shaped Box**

 

 

Dooku stirred awake, and by habit his first glance was at the clock on their bedtable. It was an hour before the alarm was supposed to go off. The cabin was as dark as it could get in the glow of the midnight sun with the curtains drawn, and Dooku watched the side of Sören, who had his back against Dooku's chest. Judging from the slow breathing and closed eyes, Sören was finally asleep.  
  
He hadn't been, for much of the night. Dooku had tried to get some sleep himself, but he kept being nudged awake, feeling Sören's distress across their Force bond as Sören lay next to him or against him, tossing and turning, trying to sleep, but in too much raw pain.  
  
Sören hadn't gotten a lot of sleep - it had been just a few hours since the last time he'd woken up and blearily looked at the time - but some sleep was better than none. Dooku lay there still, spooning Sören, wanting to give him the extra hour before the alarm went off, since Sören had a couple of Sunday classes at the studio; Sören gave himself only one weekend free per month, and this wasn't it.  
  
Sören had told him last night about their new neighbor. More than anything, Dooku was concerned for Sören. He remembered how despondent he himself was just over a year ago during the months they'd been apart, even though they'd only been together a few short months before that, and to all accounts, Sören had been just as bad if not worse, moving back from London to Reykjavik at the insistence of his sister, when Frankie had reported Sören was in bed constantly, crying, not eating. Sören had a lifelong history of depression that included a suicide attempt after quitting his medical internship in his early twenties, and admission of self-injury as a teenager and, later, when he was with his abusive partner Justin; anyone who cared about Sören necessarily worried about his mental health, even though Sören was on medication. He was highly sensitive - a sensitivity that made him a caring friend and loving partner, but also one where he could, and did, get badly hurt. If Sören had been that upset after just a few months with Dooku, he couldn't possibly begin to imagine the pain Sören must have been in after almost five years with Alejandro, the first great love of his life, and Dooku knew that seeing him again after all this time was devastating.  
  
Sören coped with his pain through his art, of course, as well as humor, and was at times relentlessly optimistic. It had been that determination to rise like the phoenixes on his back that had resulted in him pursuing his dream of Logifugl Listaskóli in his darkest hour, giving him a renewed sense of purpose in life before Dooku showed up to start again with him. And Sören had found beauty in other dark places in his life - when he lived in poverty in London, he and Frankie had managed to make their flat pretty with things they found thrifting, and using their own crafty talents to fix up furniture and other items; they'd made their own fun on little money, spending a lot of time at parks or other places in nature, Sören marveling at things the London native Frankie had seen thousands of times before but now could appreciate them through Sören's eyes, like seeing them for the first time. There was a playful innocence and sense of wonder to Sören that was made more precious for the hell he'd been through, starting in childhood when he'd seen things no child should see. He had been wounded, he had been scarred, but he wasn't  _bitter_.   
  
It was something that Dooku had badly needed after a lifetime of loneliness, being married to his job, jaded from years of seeing the worst side of humanity in a career as a criminal defense barrister, and before that the cruelty of his own family and peers. Dooku recalled the words he'd spoken when he rekindled his relationship with Sören:  
  
_When I lost you, it was like the spark went out from my life, the color faded from my world. It seems fitting I came back to you during the time of the midnight sun, because you are my sunshine. In the depths of my life's winter, you are my invincible summer._  
  
They were from two different worlds, but that was why it  _worked_. Their opposite natures balanced each other out - Dooku provided Sören with calm when he was wound up, with strength when he was vulnerable, and Sören, in turn, gave him warmth and passion and  _life_. He'd fallen hard for the younger man, and his feelings had only grown stronger as time went on. Dooku still counted his impulse move from the UK to Iceland the best decision he'd ever made; he'd follow Sören to the ends of the earth if necessary.  
  
But that hadn't been necessary, and for the last almost-year they'd been living a peaceful, cozy life here in the cabin in Svalbarðseyri, the tiny fjord village just outside of Akureyri, Sören's hometown. Life had been very close to perfect.  
  
And now Alejandro was here.  
  
Beyond his feelings of concern for Sören, Dooku didn't quite know what to make of it. His experience as a criminal defense barrister and occasionally defending the innocent meant that Dooku was careful about passing judgment and deeming this to be stalking; moreover, Alejandro didn't fit the profile of a stalker, having had no contact with Sören whatsoever for five years, and Dooku knew through his legal experience that stalkers did indeed have a set of behaviors that weren't happening here.  
  
Dooku, himself, had shown up in Akureyri months after he'd pushed Sören away in fear of his own impending mortality, to tell Sören he was wrong, and try to start over again. And he wondered if Alejandro was here for the same reason, instead of this just being a coincidence. He couldn't exactly blame the man if so - one did not simply stop loving someone like Sören.  
  
Dooku supposed that any other man in his position would probably now be in some sort of alpha dominance battle, making it clear Sören was  _his_  now. But Dooku didn't believe an honest relationship was based on trying to control one's partner - if Sören felt  _threatened_  and needed him to step in, he certainly would, but otherwise, he wanted Sören to set the boundaries about how this would be handled, if he wanted anything to do with his ex or not.  
  
More than anything, Dooku wanted Sören to be happy. If that meant losing him, well...  
  
But Dooku knew Sören wouldn't discard him - if there was one thing in the universe he was absolutely sure of, it was the way Sören felt about him, the way he could  _feel_  Sören's love across their Force bond, and all of the little ways it showed itself. And Dooku didn't want to lose him, either, and the surest way to do that was "that macho posturing bullshit", as Sören had called jealous behavior on the part of his ex Justin - acting like Alejandro was some kind of threat when neither of them were really sure what was going on here.  
  
More than losing him to Alejandro, Dooku worried about Sören getting lost in the consuming fire of his own pain. Last night Sören had  _ached_  so much he felt it in his bones, across their bond, and he'd tried to console him, holding him, rocking him, petting him, trying to soothe him with his words, but nothing helped. The funeral pyre of Sören's grief for what he'd lost was burning once again, and there was nothing he could do, and he felt powerless. He hated seeing Sören hurting this much.  
  
So here, in the early morning light, he watched Sören sleep, listening to his breathing. But it didn't take long for Sören to wake up as well, giving a little grumble as he blinked his eyes open and shifted his weight.  
  
Dooku wrapped his arms around Sören from behind and nuzzled him. "Good morning," he said.  
  
"It's Sunday, isn't it?"  
  
"It is."  
  
"Fuck."  
  
Dooku laughed softly at Sören's reaction - Sören was not a morning person, on weekdays his classes typically didn't start until afternoon. Dooku kissed Sören's cheek. "My poor boy. Would you like me to make you some coffee?"  
  
"In a bit." Sören made a whining noise, and scooted closer against Dooku's chest, his hands covering Dooku's hands now, stroking them. Dooku's arms tightened around Sören.  
  
They lay there like that for a few minutes, just holding each other, then Sören tilted his face and Dooku gave him a kiss. He didn't even mind the morning breath, enjoying the moment. Then Sören began to wiggle his ass against Dooku, and Dooku felt himself hardening. Dooku kissed Sören's neck, and Sören moaned and rubbed his ass against him a little more insistently.  
  
Dooku's hands slid down, and he found Sören hard as well. He lazily rubbed Sören through his pajama bottoms until Sören just took them down. He kissed Dooku some more, and husked, "Want to snugglefuck?"  
  
They did, laying on their sides, Dooku's arms around Sören, taking him from behind, slow and sweet. He loved the sound of Sören's moans and sighs between kisses, and at last, the beautiful cries of passion as he moved within him harder, faster, bringing them both over the edge at the same time. Sören's seed coated Dooku's hand, and Sören cleaned it off with his tongue before kissing him. Dooku moaned at the taste of his husband.  
  
"That was nice," Sören said, rolling over to face him, snuggling him some more. "Well, better than nice."  
  
"Indeed it was." Dooku gave him a soft little kiss.  
  
Sören looked at the clock and frowned. "God, why." He ran a hand through his curls and sat up. "I gotta start getting ready."  
  
"I'll make breakfast."  
  
They ate together, and had coffee, while Snúdur sat nearby and looked offended even though he'd just been fed and had eaten. Sören gave the cat copious amounts of pettings as he lingered near the door on his way out, making Dooku smile - he loved that cat, and he loved seeing Sören spoil the cat, it warmed his heart.  
  
When Sören's hand gripped the doorknob, Dooku cleared his throat.  
  
"I know you didn't sleep much last night," Dooku said. "Will you be safe to drive? Do you want me to drive you to and from the studio?"  
  
Sören shook his head. "I had coffee, I'll be fine. And... I gotta do the kiln to finish up the pots for my class, plus it would, er, help if I resumed work on my painting. So it would be better if I just came back on my own time rather than scheduling something with you, though I'll be back well before dinner."  
  
Dooku nodded. "All right." At least Sören was finding an outlet for the pain with his art, which was a good sign.  
  
While Sören was at the studio, Dooku worked on the next chapter of his novel, which was about a gay barrister defending a homophobic young client on theft charges, while trying to balance work with his home life and his marriage to a man not that much older than his client; as it turned out the defendant was himself closeted, the homophobia a cover-up, and the barrister was becoming a bit of a mentor, particularly with helping the client work through his grief and guilt and shame. The novel was informed by some of Dooku's experiences, particularly with defending ethnic minorities and the poor - all too often his clients had horror stories from their past, and Dooku had been the first person in a position of authority to actually show them any kind of concern or respect. In more than a few cases he had worked to get clients the help they needed beyond legal defense, and some had managed to turn their lives around, coming to see him later to thank him for his influence and making a difference. It had been why Dooku had sacrificed so much for his career, over the years, believing it was for the greater good. He thought that with few exceptions, nobody was beyond redemption - he was raised Romanian Orthodox, had in fact wanted to be a priest when he was a child, and though long since had stopped believing, he still somehow found comfort in the concept of forgiveness and atonement, and tried to balance justice with mercy as much as possible.  
  
He had been showing works in progress to Sören's cousin Ari Einarsson. Ari wrote fanfic, not original fiction intended for publication, but it was the closest thing Dooku had to a set of eyes who could give him the sort of critique he needed. At a few points, Ari had made jokes about subtext - Ari, whose sexual orientation he still couldn't figure out, and where Sören himself had said "nobody really knows what Ari is, not even Ari" - and Ari said "if this was a fanfiction, people would be shipping the barrister and his client, or maybe even the barrister, husband, and client in an OT3." Ari then had to explain what "OT3" meant to the clueless seventy-year-old.  
  
There were indeed a few erotic scenes in the novel between the barrister and his husband, not enough to overpower the plot with porn, but enough to "give it a little spice", as Sören had said. And at Ari's joking suggestion awhile back that Dooku write a threesome, Dooku had said, again cluelessly, "People do that?" even though he knew Leja was in an open marriage.  
  
Sören had surprised him by saying, "People do that. I've, er... had a few threesomes."  
  
Occasionally Dooku read erotica to help him master the art of writing it, both what he liked in terms of detail and tone and wording, and especially what he didn't like. He found himself looking at it now, and today's latest offerings had a number of threesome stories. Dooku read out of curiosity, and inevitably his mind went to thinking of Sören's wilder days.  
  
Dooku wasn't sure he was going to go there with the plot, as he'd intended things to be a certain way when he started the story, but it was an interesting idea, and the thoughts of Sören's past aroused him rather than angered him. He took a break to splash cold water on his face and try to calm down, otherwise he wouldn't get anything done.  
  
He managed to get back into his writing, finishing the chapter and starting the next one, engrossed enough that he startled when he heard Sören's jeep pull in. It was late afternoon now. Sören had brought his painting home with him, which was fine - Dooku liked watching him work, but what was not fine was the evolution of the work in progress from when Dooku had last seen it. Sören had started off painting a scene of the black sand beach at Reynisfjara, in southern Iceland, on a sunny summer day - the ocean was a recurring, prominent theme in his art, though each painting was different, and though inspired by Icelandic landscapes, became another world, somewhere that wasn't quite Earth. Dooku had expected something fantastical or mythological in Sören's latest. He was not expecting the sunny sky to now be dark with violent storm clouds, the sea stormy, with a kraken rising from the waves.  
  
On the other hand, maybe he shouldn't have been surprised, considering last night.  
  
Dooku looked at the contents of the mini-fridge and pantry, and decided they needed some groceries. "Do you want to come with me to the store?"  
  
Sören shook his head. "I'll stay here and paint, if you don't mind."  
  
He didn't mind, though he frowned, feeling the ache again.  
  
Dooku headed into Akureyri, to the supermarket he and Sören always used, and then came back with groceries. Sören had his headphones on as he painted, but the music was on full blast so Dooku could still hear some of it - his educated guess based on exposure to Sören's music without headphones was the  _Yeezus_  album by Kanye West, which was a sign that Sören was, in fact, in an exceedingly foul mood, though his expression remained neutral as his brush stroked the canvas.  
  
Dooku set about making fish, potatoes, and a salad. Every now and again he'd look over at Sören painting, so wrapped up in his work that a bomb could go off in their yard and he wouldn't notice. When dinner was ready he had to call Sören three times, then come over and take off his headphones.  
  
Sören was quiet during dinner, which didn't bother Dooku, and after dinner Sören got right back to painting, while Dooku resumed work on the novel. At some point Sören took off his headphones to rub his ears, and it was then that there was a knock on the door.  
  
Sören froze, and then he quickly got up and headed for the bathroom.  
  
Dooku understood Sören wasn't ready to deal with the potential awkwardness yet. He sighed as he got up from his desk and answered the door. Van was standing there.  
  
"Hello," Van said. "Am I interrupting anything?"  
  
"No." Dooku managed a smile, an attempt to be neighborly. "You can come in, would you like coffee or tea?"  
  
"No thank you, I can't stay too long," Van said. He looked over Dooku's shoulder and gave Dooku a quizzical look. "Where's your husband?"  
  
"He's not feeling well," Dooku said; it wasn't entirely a lie.  
  
"I ask because you'd said to come by sometime this weekend and we could discuss getting together. It's Sunday night now, so I wanted to take care of that -"  
  
"Yes, I understand." Dooku nodded. He briefly considered asking Van if he knew about the nature of Sören and Alejandro's history, then decided positing such a question wasn't fair with Sören not around, so that would have to wait. "Unfortunately, scheduling such plans is contingent on my husband, since he works in town and we would have to work around his schedule, so... can you come back in three days? That might give him some time to feel well enough to think about such things."  
  
"I can do that. That would be Wednesday, yes?"  
  
"Wednesday evening, six-thirty? You can have dinner with us if you'd like."  
  
"Is my companion also welcome?"  
  
Dooku kept his poker face. "I haven't met your companion yet and my husband has a degree of social anxiety so I'd like it to just be the three of us this time, if you don't mind."  
  
"I understand and I don't mind, no. Please tell Sören I said hello."  
  
"I will do that. See you Wednesday."  
  
Van was off, and Dooku quietly closed the door. A moment later, Sören poked his head out from the bathroom door.  
  
"Coast is clear," Dooku said.  
  
Sören came out and flopped back on the couch. Snúdur hopped up next to him, and Sören began stroking the cat, looking down.  
  
"I'm sorry everything is so awkward," Sören said.  
  
"That's hardly your fault."  
  
"I know that Vigdís and Páll want us to check in on Auli."  
  
"I can do that, even if you're uncomfortable with it. Though, Van is coming for dinner on Wednesday night and I think you should clear the air with him then, one way or another."  
  
Sören nodded. "Jæja, I know I can't put that off forever." He frowned, and the look in those dark brown puppy dog eyes was so sad it made Dooku want to cry.  
  
"Are you all right, sweetheart?" Dooku asked.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
"You're not fine."  
  
"I will be fine." Sören set his jaw, and dipped his brush into cleaner, then hovered over the palette for his next color. "I am always fucking fine."  
  
Sören put his headphones back on, and Dooku heard the thump of more angry, aggressive rap music.  
  
Sören continued to paint, and eventually it was late and time for Dooku to unwind. He got in his pajamas and curled up with a Stephen King novel. When he started to doze off, he asked Sören, "Are you coming to bed?" There was no answer through the headphones, and Dooku had to take them off again and repeat the question.  
  
"In a bit," Sören said.  
  
Dooku knew enough of Sören's creative habits to know "in a bit" could be fifteen minutes or ten hours - he was a bit obsessive about his art - but at least Sören didn't start any classes until the afternoon tomorrow. Dooku went to bed, turning off the lights on his side of the cabin, with Sören putting on a special lamp he used in times like this. Snúdur climbed onto the bed and settled next to Dooku, and Dooku stroked the purring cat until the purrs lulled him to sleep.  
  
He was roused from sleep a couple of hours later, with Sören changing into his pajamas. Sören paused when he saw Dooku sit up a little, and for a moment they just looked at each other and then Sören mumbled, "It's finished."  
  
"May I see it?"  
  
Sören took a deep breath and he nodded, and then he said, "You need to see something else first, though, for context."  
  
Over the years Sören had built up a substantial collection of paintings, some of which had been sold, some of which were in galleries in London and Reykjavik, some of which were on display at Logifugl Listaskóli. There were a few paintings that Dooku owned, most of them hung around the cabin. But in the hall closet, Sören kept a wrapped bundle of two paintings he had never shown anyone, and though Dooku was intensely curious, he also respected Sören's need for privacy and had never let his curiosity get the better of him to unwrap the canvases.  
  
Sören went to the hall closet. "There are two portraits in here," he said as he began to unwrap the paintings. "One of them is, er, pornographic and I'm not sure I should show you, but the other..."  
  
Dooku got up from bed and walked over. Sören wrapped up one of the canvases, and then he showed Dooku the one that had been unwrapped.  
  
It was a painting of Alejandro.  
  
"There are two," Sören said, "but the other one is, you know." He craned his head to the wrapped canvas with a clear of his throat, indicating Alejandro had been the subject of the pornographic one.  
  
This was no mere portrait, however. It was, like the painting Sören had been working on the last several days, set at Reynisfjara. Alejandro was depicted here as a merman, iridescent mermaid tail done in exquisite detail, glimmering in silver light shining through dark storm clouds. He himself had a faint glow of his own. He wore a simple silver crown and was strewn with pearls - in his hair, necklaces - and was playing a harp on the beach. There were pieces of what was presumably a wrecked ship, and Sören himself was laying there, tangled in seaweed, waking up to the sound of the harp, reaching out to touch Alejandro with a look of love and wonder in his eyes.  
  
Dooku's breath caught. It would have been a beautiful painting not knowing the context, but it was even more beautiful knowing this was a tribute to the love Sören had known.  
  
The words that Dooku spoke next surprised him as they came out. "I'm fine with seeing  _that_  if you're OK with showing me."  
  
Sören hesitated, but then after a moment he unwrapped the painting. The storm had given way to a rainbow, and on the beach in the black sand, Alejandro was laying on his back. He had human legs now, and Sören was on top of him, taking Alejandro's cock inside him, riding him, his own cock dripping precum onto Alejandro's body. It was evident this was a second go-round, as there was seed covering Alejandro's legs, as if a first orgasm had made him human. Sören was wearing one of the pearl necklaces that Alejandro had been wearing, and there was a leash of pearls attached, wrapped around Alejandro's hand.  
  
Dooku felt himself hardening - they were delicious together, he couldn't deny that - but even more than the explicit detail of their sex, Dooku's attention was caught by the look on their faces, the very clear adoration and awe, like they were both having some sort of religious experience in the shared passion.  
  
There was the third painting now, the one Sören had just completed. Reynisfjara was in storms once again - an even fiercer storm than the first portrait, and there was a kraken rising from the waves, terrifying, eldritch, like something out of HR Giger's imagination. On the beach was a bloody human heart, and a trail of blood leading into the sea. The sea was glowing with a strange light.  
  
"If I was showing this anywhere, it would be called  _Triptych_ ," Sören said, his voice shaking. His hands were shaking, as well.  
  
Dooku took the second painting out of Sören's hands, gently set it down, and took Sören's trembling hands in his. Sören met his eyes, finally, and the look on his face brought Dooku close to tears.  
  
"I'm not fine," Sören said.  
  
Dooku pulled him into bed. Sören buried his face in Dooku's chest and wailed, soaking his pajama top, as Dooku rocked him and pet his hair. "I'm sorry," Sören kept whispering.  
  
"I'm right here, love." Dooku continued petting him. "Whatever you need."  
  
"I'm sorry." Sören sobbed harder. "I'm so sorry..."  
  
"Shhhhh." Dooku kissed the top of Sören's head. "It's all right, sweetheart."  
  
Sören didn't say the words, but Dooku could feel them across their bond.  _It's never going to be all right._  
  
  
_  
  
Maglor couldn't sleep - again - and he was past the point of being able to blame it on jetlag.  
  
Vanimórë had been down the street earlier that evening, and had reported back that Sören was ill and he'd be returning on Wednesday to test the waters.  
  
Maglor, of course, knew perfectly damn well Sören wasn't actually ill, and that had been an excuse to avoid the inevitable confrontation. One did not simply walk into Svalbarðseyri like this after five years and pretend it was coincidental. Of course, it would have helped if he knew how to explain why he was there, and he still didn't quite understand why, himself.  
  
He still loved Sören, five years later, and he'd be lying if he said he didn't want him, still. But there was a difference between doing something you want and doing something you  _should_ , and the entire reason he'd let Sören go five years ago was because it was very much  _should not_. He was Elven, Sören was a human mortal, there was no way this would not end badly.  
  
He'd respected Sören's desire for no contact, and indeed, trying to remain friends with him would have made it even harder to let go. So of course, he had not known what Sören had been up to the last five years. He would have never agreed to come if he knew Sören was married. It felt selfish to be here, and for all that Vanimórë had called him a fool, he thought Vanimórë the fool for thinking Sören would be his once more - it wasn't just done and over with for five years, bridge burnt, but Sören  _had married someone else._  
  
Maglor found himself on his laptop, Googling "Sören Sigurdsson". There was the obligatory Facebook profile, Sören was on Twitter posting memes and pictures of his cat and making fun of Donald Trump, he was on deviantART with a lovely gallery of his art and photography, and there were some old interviews from zines, a few of which Maglor remembered Sören had given while they were still an item. There was a more recent interview, from earlier in 2019, with a blog on Icelandic culture. Against his better judgment, he clicked it.  
  
There was a black and white portrait of Sören, a smile lighting up his entire face, the smile that still took his breath away. Sören looked much the same as he had yesterday - he'd grown his hair out to his shoulders since they'd last seen each other, and Sören's beard was a little fuller, and at thirty-four he looked more like a man than a boy now, with the first few threads of silver in his hair, little wrinkles around his eyes that were more prominent when he smiled.  
  
He was more delicious than he had any right to be.  
  
The article was mostly about Logifugl Listaskóli, which Maglor learned Sören had started in spring 2018, and had art classes for all ages and abilities. Some of the article had bits of Sören's philosophy as an artist. One particular passage stuck out from the rest.  
  
  
**Did you always know you would have a career as an artist? Was it something you'd planned?**  
  
_I've been making art as long as I can remember - normal kids liked coloring books and crayons, I liked blank paper and drawing worlds I'd never seen before. But no, for a long time I didn't know this was what I'd be doing with my life. I was in med school, actually. My mother died when I was six, I found her body, and I was determined after that to go into medicine and save lives. Except when I had patients die during my clerkship, I broke down, I guess the trauma of my mother's death finally hit me, and I attempted suicide. In hindsight I don't think it was all due to that - I was raised by my aunt and uncle, who are dead now, but they had a drinking problem, and I also grew up queer back in the last days of queer not really being OK like it is now, so it was the perfect storm. It was a lot, and the death was the proverbial straw.  
  
I started painting when I was in hospital, the tattoo I have on my back was designed by me from the first painting I did, which was me trying to be, I don't know, fucking_ inspirational  _and find some sort of meaning in my little existential crisis. People were like, "You know, that's really good, you should do something with it. You should become an artist."  
  
And it felt like such a cliche. I was the loner goth kid in my secondary school, I was the emo kid who cut himself, now I was going to be an_ artiste  _and I was really self-conscious. But to stop making art is like trying to stop breathing, for me - there was in fact about a year where I wasn't making anything and it was the worst time of my life. And that's a very deliberate metaphor, comparing art to breathing, something you need to do to stay alive, because I found out_  art is healing.  _If you can't breathe right, you get sick. We live in a world that encourages people to stifle so much of who they are, it's no wonder we have the problems we do. When you connect with your creativity, it's like breathing clean air instead of smog.  
  
I wanted to be a doctor and help people, but my art has been my own healing process, a catharsis, at times an exorcism. And at some point the light went off over my head and I realized hey - this is how I can help people. I can encourage them to express themselves. I can encourage them to breathe this life into themselves, to make something beautiful out of their pain, a testament to their survival, their personal mythology. It doesn't matter if you paint, if you write stories, if you make music - just do something.  
  
My life looks very different now than I'd imagined it as a teenager, or even just a few years ago, even when I realized I might like to open an art studio and offer classes there. I think that's true for a lot of people - we make plans and life has a way of making other plans for us. And I think what's kept me going this long is to see my entire life as a work in progress, little accidents here and there and I can paint a tree in one place, a cloud in another. Each new painting is an adventure to be explored, and life is that way too._  
  
  
Maglor closed out the tab and sighed.  _This is why I still love thee._  
  
One might wonder what a highborn Elf might be doing with someone like Sören with his language, teasing, occasional crass humor, and a Viking temper if provoked, but Maglor's answer would always be a defining moment in their relationship, a memory he reflected on now. They had been on holiday in the Netherlands, waiting in a queue in a store, and a Muslim woman and her daughters wearing hijab were being harassed by a group of young Dutchmen. Sören broke out of the queue, came over, and told the three men, "If you don't cut the shit right now you'll be making a dental appointment with Doc Martens," pointing to his steel-toed boots. Sören was not particularly physically intimidating, being only six feet tall and of a wiry build, but there was something in the look in his eye, the growl in his voice and the way he projected himself that made the men back off, and then Sören approached the frightened woman and girls and said softly, " _Assalamualaikum_ ," indicating he was an ally. He even bought ice cream for the little girls, to further help calm them down. It was not the first or the last time Sören would demonstrate courage and compassion in front of him, and it was times like that where Sören's heart shone through most brightly.   
  
His father was fond of comparing people to gems, and it seemed to Maglor that Sören was like a geode rather than a perfect cut and faceted crystal, but the uncut, rough geodes seemed to have more sparkle. That was Sören. And his authenticity was part of what made Maglor feel less like an alien in the world, closer to human, when they were together.  
  
The authenticity made it especially tragic that Sören didn't know who or what "Alejandro" really was. The feelings had never been a lie. Even most of what little Sören knew about his life wasn't a lie - his brothers were dead, his family had made some unfortunate decisions, he had been brought up with the belief that his desires were unnatural and he would be damned for them. But it was the necessity of a new name, and a new identity each time he relocated, and having to hold back  _so much_ , that was part of the pain, the uncrossable gap between mortal and immortal. Ultimately, what good was love when he could not give Sören the same kind of honesty and complete surrender that Sören had given?  
  
And yet.  _And yet._  Still, he loved.  
  
And he hated himself for breaking that beautiful, sensitive heart. He had felt the pain Sören was in the day he ended things, and he had felt, again, the pain when he'd seen Sören arriving home in his jeep yesterday. Sören broadcasted, it was loud, and the unvoiced internal screaming was  _his fault_. He knew that period of a year that Sören had mentioned in the interview where he couldn't make art, the darkest time of his life - that was because of him. He'd almost destroyed Sören, back then. If Sören had been a musician, he absolutely  _would have_ destroyed him - Maglor thought of how those who could tune into the Music walked the knife's edge of creation and destruction and all too often, lost, and more and more of them were dying by their own hand as the Song changed, the dirge preparing for the Dagor Dagorath, though there was still yet time to go. Sören would have been another Kurt Cobain if he'd ever picked up a guitar.  
  
He feared rejection, but even more than that, he feared  _intrusion_. Sören finally had happiness in his life, though it was hard to tell from the pain radiating down the street. That happiness had been hard-won. He felt he was wrong to come here and potentially touch those wounds, leave him worse than before when, once again, things could not, would not work between an Elf and a mortal.  
  
A married mortal who had moved on with his life.  
  
Maglor closed his eyes. There was a flash of clarity - beneath the storm of feelings, the awful hope that he could taste Sören again, he saw he needed forgiveness. He needed closure - both of Sören's wounds, and his own.  
  
He needed forgiveness not just from Sören, but from the man Sören was sharing his life with, who was treating those wounds he'd caused years ago.  _I hope thou art worthy of him._  He would only have closure if the answer was yes.  
  
He was going to make it his point to find out. But not tonight. Not just yet.


	10. If You Liked It, Then You Should Have Put A Ring On It

  **If You Liked It, Then You Should Have Put A Ring On It**

  
  
  
Sören woke up Monday feeling hungover, even though he hadn't had anything to drink - it was the ache and exhaustion from the catharsis of the night before, falling apart in Dooku's arms, crying for hours.  
  
Sören still felt bad about it, though Dooku, bless him, seemed unfazed as he went about his usual morning routine of tea, breakfast, and getting online. There was a slight crease in his brow and Sören noticed his expression was more watchful than usual, and indeed, Sören could feel Dooku worrying about him across their Force bond.  
  
"I'm fine," Sören said through a mouthful of toast.  
  
"You were not fine last night."  
  
Sören chewed, swallowed, and then said, "Last night helped. If I'm not fine, I'm closer to fine than I was."  
  
"I'll grant you that concession."  
  
Sören put his plate down, got up, and walked over to the desk. He put his arms around Dooku and squeezed, leaning down to kiss the top of Dooku's head. "This is the only time I get to be taller than you," Sören laughed.  
  
Dooku laughed too, and tilted his face up to nuzzle Sören. He reached to stroke Sören's face. "My sad, sweet boy."  
  
"Jæja... well... please don't worry about me too much." Sören squeezed him again. "I have a lot to live for, and when things get dark I remind myself of that."  
  
Dooku's thumb ran over the scars on Sören's wrist, a gesture of tenderness and understanding; Sören's eyes burned with unshed tears.  
  
"You gave me a new lease on life," Dooku said, his usually smooth voice rough with emotion. "Please remember that."  
  
Sören kissed Dooku's hand. "Always." He skritched Dooku's beard. "Though I have to say, sometimes I still have a hard time believing you're seventy, apart from the yummy silver fur."  
  
Dooku smiled. "I don't feel it, or at least I don't since you came along."  
  
Sören smiled back. "I have to admit before we got together and you were just in the fantasy stage, I wondered if you'd still be able to get it up." His smile became a naughty grin. "Now I wonder if it ever goes back down."  
  
Dooku's laughter rang out, and he blushed a deep pink, dark eyes twinkling. He swatted Sören's backside, hard, which made Sören cry out, and then he groaned as his cock responded to the swat - the delicious memories of the occasions when Dooku had taken him over his knee - and his eyes caught the time.  
  
"Fuck, I have to go to the studio soon."  
  
Dooku nodded, frowning. Then he gave Sören a wicked grin of his own. "At least I can take care of myself whilst you're gone." He winked. "I might even take a photo and send it to you, if you're lucky."  
  
Sören's breath came out in a hiss, cock throbbing at the mental image of the last time Dooku had sent him a picture like that while he was at work. "I fucking hate you, you cocktease."  
  
"Mmmmmm. Bratty boys like you deserve a good tease now and again."  
  
"Fucking..." Sören gave a mock glare. "I'll... get you back one of these days."  
  
"Promises, promises."  
  
"Oh believe me." Sören shoved the rest of his toast into his mouth, bringing the plate to the sink. "I'll figure something out."  
  
"Yes, please,  _entertain me._ "  
  
Sören was still smiling and laughing on his way out to the jeep. He saw Alejandro in the distance, walking Auli, and he made himself look away, made his thoughts turn towards the man in the cabin who had married him, who had moved to another country for him, had opened his lonely heart and let him all the way inside. It had been quite a transformation, to watch Dooku since the end of 2017. Dooku would always be himself - the more serious one of the two, still a bit reserved and formal around others who weren't Sören, and indeed Sören found his dignified, gentlemanly manner quite sexy - but it was wonderful to see him lighten up and  _play_ , something Sören had hoped for when they'd started off as friends. He'd seen, he'd felt, the deep melancholy in Dooku's soul, and wanted to make him happy. He understood that kind of melancholy himself, though he masked it with humor.  
  
It was the same kind of melancholy Alejandro had.  _I have a type,_  Sören thought to himself as he couldn't help but steal another glance at Alejandro, still looking impeccable even dressed down in a T-shirt and black chinos, long hair stirring in the breeze, with a crease of worry or pain between his thick brows.  
  
_Já, I definitely have a type. Sad and full of regrets, posh backgrounds, they like the sea, tall as fuck, big-ass eyebrows._    
  
Their eyes met, and Sören knew Alejandro now knew he was being watched. Sören started to drive off, focusing his eyes on the road. He turned on his car stereo. "Teardrop" by Massive Attack came on, which had been playing when Sören had seen him for the first time in five years the other day. "Oh goddammit," Sören growled, pushing the forward button to skip to the next random song on his playlist.  
  
An instrumental by Boards of Canada wasn't necessarily less melancholy, but at least it didn't have the same knife-to-the-gut reaction of the previous song. Throughout Sören's relationship with Alejandro, he'd noticed a tendency for radio and playlists to play songs too appropriate for the moment when Alejandro was around, to the point where Sören had sometimes wondered if Alejandro was Force sensitive and was deliberately or subconsciously manipulating the music in some way. But that had never been a safe subject to bring up with anyone before Dooku, so they had never talked about it, if Alejandro was he hid it very well, and Sören had hid his own abilities as best as he could those nearly five years.  
  
Sören wondered about it again - it sure felt like he was being trolled by his playlist - and then he mentally smacked himself.  _Stop thinking about him. Why does it matter?_  
  
Sören had three classes that day. The first class was a painting class for adults, mostly elderly adults at this time of day. The second class was schoolchildren, and their exuberance and playfulness helped put Sören in a better mood. The third class, in the late afternoon, was adults and more of a mix of ages, from the elderly to college age. Feeling more cheerful, Sören had the pop station on in the background as everyone worked, and found himself singing along with Pharrell Williams, not really thinking about it.  
  
Anna, one of the younger women in the class, smiled at him. "You have a good voice," she said.  
  
"Aww, thank you." Sören smiled back, blushing, feeling a little self-conscious.  
  
Anna's boyfriend Viktor nodded. Then Viktor said, "You know what would be a great addition to the school here? Music classes. This is an art school and music is a form of art, já? You talk about how important creativity and expression is, this could go quite a ways to helping people tap into their creative sides."  
  
Sören pursed his lips. "I'm not a musician, I just sing in the shower and when I drive and shit like that."  
  
"No, but maybe you could, I don't know, put out an ad and look for someone to teach music classes here?" Viktor resumed sketching. "It's a thought."  
  
"I'd really like that," said Kristjan, one of the middle-aged men. "I haven't played guitar in awhile and it would be fun to get back into it."  
  
"Hm," was all Sören would say to that.  
  
When the class was over Sören cleaned up, as he did, and decided to check his phone, avoiding it all day in case Dooku had in fact sexted him, not wanting to have an obvious hard-on in front of his students. There was nothing, which slightly disappointed him. A couple of the students were lingering, as they were welcome to do until Sören closed up, having refreshments that Sören kept in a mini-fridge and a shelf beside it: sodas and some snacks. Sören himself had a Sprite, and leaned against the table.  
  
"Music classes would be fun," said Guðmundur, a man close to Sören's age.  
  
Sören rubbed his face like a wet cat. "I'll look into it," he said, finally, wanting the subject to go away. This was his school and he didn't like the idea of hiring someone else, but now that the suggestion can had been opened it was too late to put the worms in, and more of his students would peck at it till he gave in. It wasn't a horrible idea, but there were some practical considerations, and right now he was still trying to de-stress from the shock of a certain musician suddenly materializing up the street.  
  
Sören drove home, and when he got inside, he found Dooku hadn't sent him a naughty text because Dooku was taking a nap, Snúdur snuggled up on him. Dooku had one hand wrapped around the paw of the ragged, well-loved teddy bear he'd owned since he was a child in the 1950s, and the index finger of his other hand had Snúdur's paw curled over it, flexing in time with their breaths, breathing in unison. The scene was so precious that Sören fought back a squeak, not wanting to wake them up. But at the sound of Sören getting in, Snúdur woke up, yawning and stretching, and then Dooku also followed suit, sitting up a little, giving Sören a lazy smile. "Oh, hello there," Dooku said. "I must have fallen asleep."  
  
"You looked adorable." Sören smiled. "Though you're always cute."  
  
"I. Am. Not. Cute."  
  
"Hi not cute, I'm -"  
  
"I see you must be feeling better."  
  
"A little, I suppose."  
  
Dooku sat all the way up. "What time is it..." He squinted and looked at the clock. "Oh, shit. I was going to go to the grocery store and pick up something for dinner. I can still do that, but we'll be eating late -"  
  
Sören shook his head. "You want to go out for dinner? We haven't done that in awhile, and it would be nice after..." He didn't need to finish the sentence with  _after yesterday_ , they both knew. Sören knew Dooku's nap was because he had been up way too late last night, trying to console Sören as he fell apart in his arms.  
  
"That would be nice. Where would you like to go?"  
  
Sören decided on Serrano, the Mexican restaurant in Akureyri where Sören had taken him on the night Dooku was inside him for the first time in November 2017, and had fond memories for them both. It was a nice cozy evening, made better by taking a little detour on the way back to the Dimmuborgir, where they took a stroll, holding hands.  
  
They kissed and nuzzled on the drive home. When they got in, Dooku stopped in the bathroom, and when he was done he came out naked, to find Sören also naked, waiting for him. Sören threw his arms around Dooku and kissed him deeply; they kissed all the way to the bed, tumbling down together.  
  
Then Dooku just held Sören for a moment, cradling him into his chest, as Sören nuzzled his silver chest hair, listening to his heartbeat, and Dooku pet Sören's curls. They were both hard and aching for release, but they both very much needed this moment - Sören relished the comfort of the strong, protective arms around him, the muscular chest his shield wall, and he could feel Dooku's enjoyment in holding him, how content he was with Sören close to him, the pain of his past far away with Sören in his arms.  
  
At last Dooku cupped Sören's chin in his hand, stroking Sören's beard, and said softly, "I'm not going anywhere,  _elskan_."  
  
Sören grinned, feeling playful from their evening out. "Hi not going anywhere -"  
  
" _You know..._ "  
  
Sören kissed the tip of his nose. "I know. I just like making you make that face." He caressed Dooku's cheek, grin broadening as he watched Dooku blush. "You're so cute."  
  
"I am  _not cute_."  
  
Sören started poking him. "No! Stop touching me! I AM THE NIGHT!" Sören squeaked.  
  
Dooku's eyes twinkled and he shot back, "Hi, the night, I'm -"  
  
Sören shut him up with a kiss, and Dooku swatted Sören's ass, hard, making Sören cry out and rub against him, like a cat in heat. Dooku nipped Sören's lower lip with a growl, before giving him a more gentle kiss.  
  
"What would you like?" Sören whispered.  
  
"To hold you." Their eyes met. "With all of me."  
  
Sören bit his lower lip, feeling heat flush his cheeks, his cock throbbing at the mental image Dooku projected at him. It had been over a week since the last time Dooku had bottomed for him - Sören was the bottom most of the time, an arrangement he didn't mind, but he did enjoy topping now and again, and indeed, that was what the Prince Albert ring in his cock was for. Sören kissed Dooku back, hard and hungry, his hand reaching down to part Dooku's thighs.  
  
But as hard as they both were, leaking precum, Sören took his time, wanting Dooku to be nice and relaxed before taking him. He kissed Dooku again and again, then kissed and licked his neck as he slowly stroked Dooku's cock. When his mouth made his way to Dooku's chest, licking chest hair, lapping and suckling the nipples into hard peaks, his fingers worked inside him, readying him, Sören's cock throbbing at the sound of Dooku's moans as Sören found his prostate and rubbed in lazy circles. Sören could feel his pleasure across their Force bond, the combination of nipple and prostate stimulation bringing him to the edge right away. Sören gave him a wicked grin as he tugged a nipple with his teeth, before sucking hard, making Dooku arch to him, panting.  
  
"Sören..."  
  
"Mmmmm." Sören sucked at the other nipple, then licked slowly, eyes riveted on Dooku's reactions. Sören's own hard-on rubbed against Dooku's thigh, savoring the feel of his body hair teasing his sensitive cock.  
  
Sören spent awhile longer on Dooku's nipples, until Dooku was gasping for breath, his nails digging into Sören's hips. Then his lips trailed lower, kissing Dooku's stomach, tongue trailing the definition in his abs. "So fucking sexy," Sören purred. "God, you're fucking hot." He grinned at the way Dooku blushed - still bashful about taking compliments from him like this - and planted a gentle kiss on his stomach just before giving a little nibble, making Dooku cry out.  
  
Sören kissed over to one hip, knowing he was sensitive there, sucking and nibbling at his hip, and at last kissed down to his thigh, licking the body hair, nibbling, nipping hard enough to leave marks later, wanting his lover to see the telltale signs of where he'd been. Sören kissed back up to his hip, back over his stomach again, to the other hip and thigh. By the time Sören was ready to work on Dooku's cock, leaning over it and letting Dooku see the hunger on his face, precum was pooling all the way down the shaft, more of it leaking from the slit just as Sören lowered his mouth. Sören began to lick just the slit, very slowly, as Dooku moaned, his fists in Sören's curls. "Sören...  _elskan_..."  
  
"We'll get there, love." Sören took a few more licks, and then started licking the rest of the cockhead, swirling his tongue, making Dooku cry out before he took just the head into his mouth, sucking, continuing to work his tongue.  
  
Eventually, the entire length of him was in Sören's mouth, sucking slowly. His fingers continued to play inside Dooku's channel, opening him up, the promise of what was yet to be. Sören's free hand cupped and gently rubbed the balls, which he could feel tightening. Sören's own cock was ragingly hard, out of his mind with lust for the gorgeous silver fox writhing underneath him, and it took every ounce of his strength to hold back from pinning him down and just taking him already, wanting to make this good for him, taking pleasure in giving pleasure.  
  
Sören slid down and dipped his tongue into Dooku's channel, tasting soap and musk. The strangled sob Dooku made at the feel of Sören's tongue inside him made Sören's cock twinge, and Sören reached down to start stroking himself, not able to help it. Sören's free hand played with Dooku's cock, stroking more slowly than he was stroking himself, continuing to tease, his tongue lapping slowly against the nub inside him. He loved the groans and cries as he edged Dooku closer, and soon his tongue was like a hurricane, fucking him, his own cock leaking as Dooku bucked against his mouth, clutching Sören's head for dear life, trying to call his name and producing incoherent moans.  
  
Just before Dooku could come like that, Sören stopped, taking a few more tormenting licks at the head of Dooku's cock, before sliding up. He used the Force to pour lube into Dooku's opening and over his own cock, and Dooku gasped as he felt the head of Sören's cock poised at his entrance.  
  
"You still want it, love?" Sören husked.  
  
"Please."  
  
Sören pushed into him, and felt Dooku bearing down, pushing out, breathing slow and deep as Sören had taught him. It was always a tight fit, and Sören gave him a moment to adjust. Then he began rocking slowly, smiling as the guttural, primal roar Dooku made let him know the Prince Albert ring in his cock had hit that spot.  
  
Sören kissed him hard, and kept kissing him with each thrust, moving slowly, one arm around Dooku, his free hand running over Dooku's chest and stomach and thighs, wanting to touch and play, loving the feel of the rough body hair beneath his fingertips. Dooku moaned into the kisses, rolling his hips back at Sören, welcoming him.  
  
Soon Dooku's arms and legs were wrapped around him and Sören moved faster, kissing and licking Dooku's neck. And then Dooku moved a hand to cup Sören's chin, tilt his face so their mouths could meet once more, and between kisses he breathed, "I love you."  
  
"I love you," Sören said, stroking his face. "So much."  
  
Dooku kissed him hard. "I will never leave you."  
  
The words brought tears to Sören's eyes, and he responded by kissing Dooku back so hard it took their breath away, driving into him with abandon. Dooku met his thrusts, nails digging in Sören's back, occasionally spanking Sören's ass to urge him on harder, faster. The bed rocked against the wall and Sören pounded into him, nothing else existing but the lust, the heat, the  _need_.  
  
Their eyes met, and the urgent moans became just shuddering gasps, the two poised on the brink of orgasm, not yet flying off together, wanting to be lost in each other just a little longer.   
  
"So close..." Dooku warned.  
  
"Mmmmm." Sören kissed him again.  
  
A few more kisses, then he kissed Dooku's neck and Dooku cried out, "I'm going to come -"  
  
"Hi going to come..."  
  
Dooku exploded, laughing as he spilled over Sören's chest and stomach, contracting around Sören's cock, and then Sören gave in, also laughing as he came inside the man he loved, rewarded by the sound of Dooku's deep moans, feeling across their Force bond the way Dooku loved feeling Sören spend into him. Sören collapsed onto Dooku's shoulder, shuddering, toes curling from the intensity of his release. Dooku took his hands and they kissed deeply, moaning and sighing together. All was right with the world.  
  
"You brat." Dooku's eyes shone as he kissed Sören's nose.  
  
"You love it." Sören gave him a peck.  
  
They cuddled together for awhile, then Snúdur meowed, and Dooku got up to feed the cat. "Yes, we know you're  _starving_ ," Dooku teased - the cat had been fed that afternoon. Sören admired Dooku's naked body moving around in the kitchen, and Dooku, feeling Sören's eyes on him, finally grinned, blushing.  
  
"You'd think after a year and a half you'd get used to it," Sören said.  
  
"Well, you know." Dooku's grin became a smaller, shy smile. "I was single my entire life. This is all still very new to me."  
  
"Yes, and your cherry was delicious."  
  
Dooku's flush deepened, and he laughed aloud, spilling cat food before he set it down. "Dammit, Sören."  
  
"I still can't believe sometimes I'm the only person you've had sex with," Sören said. "That there wasn't a line, trying to break down your door."  
  
"Even if there had been," Dooku said, "you know the story of why I couldn't. It wasn't safe to be out, when I was old enough, and I didn't want to risk my career getting caught. Not to mention all of my issues. Growing up feeling like you're worthless, you wonder what anyone would see in you. The first crush I had certainly reinforced that feeling."  
  
Sören sighed. "You're far from worthless."  
  
"I know that now." Dooku nodded. He came back into the portion of the cabin where their bed and dressers were, and took out pajamas. "But for a long time, I felt very, very alone in this world."  
  
"You're not alone anymore." Sören rolled and leaned up to kiss him.  
  
They decided to curl up together on the bed. Dooku had his Stephen King book, and Sören got his laptop. He saw he'd been pinged in the family chat server, and he wasn't really in the mood to be social, but he knew his twin Dagnýr in particular would worry - and keep pinging him - if he didn't make a brief appearance.  
  
  
**[9:37 PM] Sören:**  hey I'm not dead  
**[9:39 PM] Dagnýr:**  How are you holding up?  
**[9:41 PM] Sören:**  eh  
**[9:42 PM] Sören:**  last night was rough  
**[9:42 PM] Sören:**  too many memories, too many feels  
**[9:42 PM] Sören:**  tonight was better  
**[9:42 PM] Sören:**  I just got laid  
**[9:43 PM] Dagnýr:**

[Image: Jack Black is holding a sign that says STOP next to Elmo.]

 **[9:45 PM] Sören:**  listen you asked me how I was holding up  
**[9:45 PM] Sören:**  that involved "up"  
**[9:46 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'd ask why you're like this, but we're related.  
**[9:47 PM] Sören:**  yeah  
**[9:47 PM] Sören:**  anyway I'm not really up for talking tonight if that's OK  
**[9:48 PM] Sören:**  I just wanted to check in so you don't think I'm having a breakdown or smth  
**[9:49 PM] Dagnýr:**  Thank you for that.  
**[9:51 PM] Dagnýr:**  Please know I am here if you need anything.  
**[9:52 PM] Sören:**  I know.  
  
Sören closed out the chat server and logged into Stardew Valley, to do something mindless and happy and fun for awhile. It was starting to rain outside, and the sound of the rain relaxed him.  
  
After he'd been playing for a bit, he noticed Dooku was dozing off next to him, and he was himself finally feeling the effects of a long night and a longer day, so he finished up what he was doing, logged out, turned off the lights, and crawled back into bed, wrapping the covers around them.  
  
Dooku stirred, feeling the movement next to him. "Hm?"  
  
"Shh. It's just me. Go back to sleep." Sören's lips gently brushed his.  
  
"Mmmm." In the darkness, Sören could feel Dooku's mouth upturn into a sleepy smile. "I love you," Dooku mumbled.  
  
"I love you too." Sören wrapped his arms around him, holding him tight, and burrowed into his chest, listening to the rain, snuggling to sleep.  
  
In the morning, the rain had calmed down to a drizzle, making Sören's curls frizzy as he made the trek to the studio. He had two adult classes, one of which was ceramics, and already word had spread.  
  
"You're going to have a music class?" asked María, a woman in her fifties.  
  
Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls, immediately regretting it because he had clay on his hand still. _Fuck._  "I... ah. That hasn't been officially decided." He folded his arms and leaned back. "There's a lot to consider, one thing being if it's even worth it to hire someone to teach classes, and rent instruments."  
  
"You could always have a poll and see how many people are actually interested," María said. "I'd be surprised if it wasn't at least a fourth of your adult students."  
  
"You should take a poll," Guðmundur said, nodding.  
  
Sören sighed. He wanted to make his students happy, but it would be a change. "Jæja, I'll... get right on that."  
  
Despite Sören's awkward feelings at the pressure put on him to get music classes going at the studio, he was still in a fairly cheerful mood from the ceramics class when he drove home. He put on the pop station, dancing in his seat, singing along.  
  
When the jeep turned into Svalbarðseyri, "Single Ladies" by Beyoncé came on. And as if on cue, Sören saw Alejandro, walking Auli. Feeling impish, Sören turned the volume all the way up.  
  
Sören slowed the jeep down to match Alejandro's pace, the song thumping out the window as Alejandro walked alongside Sören's jeep.  
  
_I got gloss on my lips, a man on my hips  
Got me tighter than my Dereon jeans  
Acting up, drink in my cup  
I can care less what you think  
I need no permission, did I mention?  
Don't pay him any attention  
'Cause you had your turn, but now you gon' learn  
What it really feels like to miss me  
  
'Cause if you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it  
If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it  
Don't be mad once you see that he want it  
If you liked it, then you should have put a ring on it_  
  
Sören waited, keeping his driving slow. He started singing along in his rich, husky tenor at the bridge:  
  
_Don't treat me to these things of the world  
I'm not that kind of girl  
Your love is what I prefer, what I deserve  
Here's a man that makes me then takes me  
And delivers me to a destiny, to infinity and beyond  
Pull me into your arms  
Say I'm the one you want  
If you don't, you'll be alone  
And like a ghost I'll be gone_  
  
Alejandro finally turned his head. Sören flashed him a smile, gave a demure little wave that wasn't really demure at all.  
  
Alejandro started walking faster, not quite a run, but enough that soon he was ahead of the jeep and Sören was watching his back, still straight and tall.  
  
_All the single ladies  
All the single ladies  
All the single ladies  
All the single ladies  
All the single ladies  
All the single ladies  
All the single ladies  
Now put your hands up_  
  
"Bitch," Sören said under his breath.  
  
  
_  
  
When Maglor got in, he was quietly furious, not so much with Sören as with himself. Though Sören had audacity, knowing just where and how to hit him, and it hurt.  
  
He sat on the couch and Auli came over, paws on Maglor's knees, giving a little whine of sympathy before he started licking Maglor's face.  
  
Maglor's first instinct was to push the dog away, not wanting anyone or anything to feel sorry for him, but the dog just doubled down, continuing to lap his face, and Maglor found himself petting the dog, which is how Vanimórë found them when he strolled from the kitchen a moment later.  
  
Maglor and Vanimórë just looked at each other for a moment, then Maglor looked away.  
  
"Thou art upset," Vanimórë said.  
  
"Leave me alone." Auli got down, as if it had been directed at him, giving a little whine on the way to the kitchen.  
  
"This is my house too. And making me go away will not solve thy problems." Vanimórë gave him a knowing look. "Indeed, almost all thy problems stem from pushing others away, which is why we are here."  
  
"Dost thou not have something to do?"  
  
"Thee, if thou art interested."  
  
Maglor rose from the couch, and walked towards Vanimórë, feeling his blood boil. He stood there, shaking, feeling like he could  _strike_  in his anger... and then he seized a fistful of Vanimórë's hair, slamming against him, kissing him roughly.  
  
_You'll be alone, and like a ghost, I'll be gone_  rang through Maglor's head as he pushed Vanimórë towards the bed, the two undressing each other on the way there. He was  _in pain_ , and as much as he hated himself for taking what was being offered - needing this, the way he'd needed it so long ago in Barad-dûr - it was all he could do to keep going.  
  
"Yes, beauty." Vanimórë was kissing his way down Maglor's body now, smiling at the little whimpers he made, the gasps as he knew exactly where and how to tease him. "Thou dost hunger, and it is no shame to meet thy need."  
  
"Shut up," Maglor hissed.  
  
Vanimórë shut up by taking Maglor's cock into his mouth, heat burning in those purple eyes as Maglor watched the full, luscious lips swallow him down. He thought of Sören's full lips - the sweet mouth he'd never tired of kissing, ached to feel on his now.  
  
Before he could spill into Vanimórë's mouth, Vanimórë let him slip out, and stuck his precum-slick tongue into Maglor's channel, devouring him. The pain was further away now, only the Song, this one of primal, feral hunger, the rhythm of the heat. Vanimórë's tongue on his prostate was sweet, wild magic, soothing the ache, and yet, there was still emptiness. He needed more.  
  
Vanimórë sucked at him some more, and then came up to kiss him, oil-slick fingers readying him. "I know," Vanimórë husked between kisses. "I know what thou needest."  
  
"Please," Maglor gasped out.  
  
Vanimórë kissed him deep, pushing into him. It had been too long since Maglor had anyone or anything inside him - Sören had been the last. He was tight, enough that it burned even with a copious amount of oil, but  _hells_ , he needed to feel that burn, the shock of feeling alive.  
  
Vanimórë moved in him tormentingly slowly, undoing him bit by bit, until Maglor's nails were in his back, not even able to make words to express his need to be taken harder, faster, almost sobbing. That was when Vanimórë gave in to him, holding nothing back, the mattress creaking underneath them, flesh slapping together. Maglor's cries became shuddering gasps for breath, lost in the storm.  
  
The storm finally broke, Maglor letting out a strangled cry as he came, followed by a deep groan of satisfaction from Vanimórë as he came as well. Maglor gasped again as he felt the heat rush inside him, and tears blurred his eyes as he thought of the way it had felt when Sören had come in him, the feeling of  _completion_ , like the most perfect part of a song on an endless loop.  
  
But Sören wasn't here. Once again, Maglor felt himself a fool for even hoping - one more taste, a few, before he would have to end things again? And there had been so much  _rage_  - rightly so, he had broken Sören's heart, but... how could Sören ever forgive him, let alone consider...?  
  
_He is married. This is not right._  
  
Vanimórë's lips tenderly brushed Maglor's brow. "I had hoped to give thee some peace."  
  
Maglor sighed. Already the pain was rushing back. "I need to be alone," he said.  
  
Vanimórë gave him a disapproving look, but wasn't going to argue. "As thou wishest." Vanimórë slipped out of him, collected his clothing, and quietly walked out of the room.  
  
Maglor lay there alone, curled up on the pillows, feeling exhausted. He drew the blanket around himself, like a protective fortress. He closed his eyes and thought of happier times - watching the aurora with Sören snuggled together in a field under the stars in a blanket like this one as a bonfire burned in the snow, the two of them roasting marshmallows and feeding each other, licking the stickiness off each other's faces. Swimming with Sören in a geothermal pool, Sören splashing him, then later playing with his drying hair.  
  
Too many memories. And yet, not enough. Five years was barely a drop in the bucket for his kind.  
  
They were few, compared to the rest of his life, and yet... the happiest time of his life, apart from when he was an elfling.  
  
_If only I had never allowed myself that indulgence..._  Maglor sighed.  
  
Auli hopped up on the bed and climbed onto Maglor, snuggling against him, licking his face again. Maglor sighed again as he found himself stroking the sheepdog's thick, plush brown-and-white fur, looking into the knowing, sad brown eyes.  
  
He hadn't owned dogs in literal ages. Animal companionship was as risky as the companionship of Men - they died, they were a liability to move around with.  
  
And yet, he ached for this, too. He hadn't been thrilled about the dogsitting clause on the cottage they were renting, initially, but in just a few short days Auli had grown on him, and he found himself looking forward to walking the dog - running into Sören notwithstanding - and he appreciated the dog's presence when he read or composed. Auli had even helped him sleep last night, after too many restless nights alone, hurting.  
  
He'd have to leave Auli behind, too, and that thought made him sad.  
  
But for now, he allowed himself this indulgence as well, nose buried in the soft fur, petting the sheepdog, sharp edges of his feelings soothed by a being that loved him unconditionally.  
  
He had been dozing off when he felt Vanimórë's presence outside the bedroom door, peeking in. Maglor quickly sat up, trying to pretend like he hadn't just been cuddling a dog like he was an elfling again.  
  
"I am to see them tomorrow," Vanimórë said simply.  
  
Maglor nodded. He knew that Vanimórë had met Sören before - he rankled slightly, still feeling stung by the fact that they'd been intimate, and Vanimórë  _knew_  that would influence his decision to come here.  
  
"What am I to say about thee?"  
  
Maglor sighed. "I don't know." He frowned. "I should not even be here."  
  
"But thou art. And thou hast not left yet."  
  
"Not yet, no."  
  
"Thou canst stay or go as thou dost wish, thou knowest this, but it makes no sense to stay if thou wouldst keep avoiding him. Sooner or later, thou and Sören will have to talk. I cannot do this for thee, but what I say tomorrow can help build a bridge to that moment. So think about it."  
  
Maglor took a few moments to consider, and finally he said, "Thou canst tell Sören I came here for closure." It wasn't a lie. More than wanting Sören back, he wanted to quiet the terrible pain he felt Sören broadcasting, somehow.  
  
Vanimórë nodded. "Very well." He turned to leave the room, but then he paused, and gave Maglor a smile. "Thou didst look adorable cuddled up with the dog."  
  
Maglor's jaw set. "I am not adorable."  
  
Vanimórë chuckled as he walked off.


	11. The Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step

**The Journey Of A Thousand Miles Begins With A Single Step**

  
  
  
Sören had only morning and early afternoon classes on Wednesday, and to kill time before Van arrived, he played Stardew Valley, zoning out with his headphones on, listening to the pop station to keep in a cheerful mood.  
  
Or trying to.  
  
He was nervous. In his experience both as a Force-sensitive and as someone with post-traumatic stress disorder, Sören knew he had two different kinds of anxiety. There was the kind brought on by triggers or phobias, even if it was something small where he couldn't pinpoint it right away, and sometimes even happened at happy events - Sören had a case of impostor syndrome thanks to the abuse and bullying he experienced growing up, and it was still hard for him to have art shows and be the center of attention and receive compliments, without feeling like everyone would think his work was shit and was just here because they felt sorry for him. And then there was the kind of anxiety that was brought on by an impending disturbance in the Force.  
  
This was a curious combination of the former and the latter - the trigger of anything related to Alejandro, and a sense that this get-together with Van had the potential to either go very badly or make things  _weird_ , and things getting weird wouldn't necessarily be better than things going badly.  
  
 _Well,_  Sören thought to himself as he used the Force to lift his can of Sprite off the coffee table and bring it to his lips hands-free,  _how much weirder could they get, really?_  He used the Force to put the can back down.  
  
Van was prompt, arriving right at six-thirty. He came with a delicious-looking strawberry-topped cheesecake, which was obviously storebought and not homemade, but Dooku didn't seem to mind as he answered the door.  
  
"We're having lamb skewers grilled outside," Dooku said, "since it finally stopped raining and it's lovely weather today."  
  
"That sounds perfect." Van smiled.  
  
"Hej, Van," Sören said, not able to help grinning at him.  
  
"Sören. You look lovely."  
  
Sören blushed - he was dressed down, wearing a Bauhaus T-shirt with skinny jeans, and had his hair up in a man bun. He'd considered putting on something fancy, but didn't know if that would arouse some kind of suspicion or jealousy in Dooku, who thus far had been wonderfully mature about the fact that Sören and Van had shagged once back in 2015, but Sören didn't want to push his luck. Sören didn't think he looked remarkable in his usual day-to-day clothes, but Van's compliment was sincere, and Sören swore he could hear  _You always look lovely_  in the back of his head. He wondered if he was just hearing that, or if Van was mildly Force sensitive.  
  
He felt just a little more anxious at that.  
  
"Would you like coffee or tea while I get everything ready to take outside?" Dooku asked.  
  
"Yes, coffee, please," Van said. "Dark but not black, two sugars."  
  
Sören gestured for Van to sit on the couch with him, and then they heard "Mow?" Snúdur trotted over to headbutt and rub against Sören, and then sniff Van. Snúdur then got on the couch between them, and proceeded to lay across both of them, purring loudly.  
  
"Well, hello there," Van said, stroking the cat. "Does he have a name?" he asked Sören.  
  
"Jæja... his name is Snúdur."  
  
Van smiled. "You named your cat Cinnamon Roll?"  
  
"You speak Icelandic?"  
  
" _Smá. Ekki mjög vel._ "  
  
Sören nodded. "Most non-natives don't. I've been speaking English as a second language since I was... six? I think? And I have to use it regularly because of this big guy over here..." Sören blew Dooku a kiss, who blushed, eyes twinkling. "But still, you get points for knowing what my cat's name means." Sören cocked his head to one side. "Where are you from, anyway?"  
  
A soft laugh. "Around." Van explained at Sören's look, "I travel so much that I could say the world is my country. My father was a government official, of sorts, so I got in the habit of traveling from place to place rather young."  
  
"How long have you been in Iceland? Have you stayed here the entire four years since I've seen you?"  
  
"No, I've been elsewhere. I just arrived here a few days ago." Van changed the subject and pointed to Sören's laptop. "What is that?"  
  
"Stardew Valley." Sören flushed, feeling self-conscious about it, like he was an overgrown child. "It's a silly game."  
  
"If it gives you happiness, there's no need to feel silly about it."  
  
Dooku brought Van his coffee. "Here you are," Dooku said, and took a seat across from them in the rocking chair.  
  
" _Takk_ ," Van said, practicing his Icelandic. He sipped. "Wonderful. Nice and strong."  
  
"I like my coffee fairly strong as well," Dooku said, "though I'm more of a tea drinker." He gestured to his own cup of Earl Grey.  
  
Snúdur's purr got louder, and he started kneading.  
  
"Ah, he likes you," Sören said.  
  
"How is Auli?" Dooku asked.  
  
"He's doing well," Van said, nodding. "Auli is at a park right now with my companion to run around and enjoy the weather."  
  
"Our neighbors had asked us to check in on the dog," Dooku said, "and I'm sure he's in good hands, but I am uncomfortable lying to people and telling them I'm checking in if I'm not, so I hope you won't mind if I venture up the street a few times a week to say hello."  
  
"I don't mind at all," Van said, "and you're always welcome to stop by."  
  
"Hopefully that doesn't bother your companion, either."  
  
"It probably won't."  
  
Sören shot Dooku a look, who merely raised an eyebrow at him. The next few minutes passed in silence, and then Sören and Van accompanied Dooku outside. Dooku got the grill started, with chunks of lamb and different vegetables. Earlier, he'd made a salad. He poured out wine for everyone as they waited.  
  
Sören's anxiety was kicked up enough by the mention of the "companion" that even though he didn't want to have this conversation, he also saw no more point in prolonging the inevitable.  _Shot in the arm. Get it done, get it over with._  Sören finished his Sprite, made a basket into the recycling bin, and then he said, "So, Van... my husband is aware you and I have a small history, but." He coughed. "Are you aware I have a not-so-small history with your companion, Alejandro?"  
  
Van took a moment to respond, as if he was being cautious about how he would proceed. "Yes, I am."  
  
"I see."  
  
Van waited for Sören to make the next move in the conversation. Now it was Sören's turn to exercise caution, like he was playing a mental game of chess...  _or defusing a bomb._  Sören finally said, "Alejandro and I were together for close to five years, and it didn't end on the best note."  
  
"I am aware of that, yes."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. "Did the two of you just happen to show up here by coincidence, or did he come here looking for me?"  
  
"Speaking honestly? He came here to see you." Van leaned back, and looked Sören in the eye. "He spoke of needing closure."  
  
Sören folded his arms, and looked down.  
  
Another few minutes of awkward silence passed, and then Van made the next move. "Neither of us wants you to feel unsafe in any way, so if this is bothering you... he can leave."  
  
"I'm not  _afraid_  of him, if that's what you mean," Sören said. Many people had made Sören feel afraid in his thirty-four years of life - his aunt and uncle, his school peers who tormented him, his ex Justin - but not Alejandro. Not once. For all that Sören didn't know much about Alejandro's background, where he came from, he knew Alejandro's heart, and up until the end, Sören had always felt that Alejandro would rather die than cause him suffering. He had trusted Alejandro with his life. "I just... I don't understand what 'closure' means here. It's been five years. I'm married. He broke my heart. There is nothing left for him."  
  
"He wants to make sure you're all right," Van said. "And I think, in time, he wants to explain what happened, and why things happened the way they did."  
  
Sören snorted. "Oh, I know what happened, and why. You must surely know how that turned out."  
  
"I know that you don't know the full story. There are... details... he was withholding. But that's his story to tell, and he may not be ready to tell it right away. Alejandro has reasons for protecting his privacy the way he does."  
  
"You sound like you've known him a long time."  
  
"He and I go back quite a ways, yes."  
  
"So you know his family and whatever?"  
  
"...Yes."  
  
 _My father was a government official, of sorts._  The earlier comment combined with this latest information put Sören on edge and he thought to himself  _Definitely his family is mixed up in something shady._  
  
Van met his eyes again, and held them. "Also speaking honestly, I'm not here for the purely unselfish purpose of helping Alejandro. The chance of seeing you again, well... it intrigued me."  
  
Sören's mouth went dry, and his stomach fluttered. He wanted to make words in response, and they failed him.  
  
Van went on, "I know our encounter was brief, but..." A smile. "There was something about you. I regretted not giving you my contact information so we could get to know each other better."  
  
"I regretted that too," Sören said, nodding. "You weren't like everyone else at the club." Sören smiled back. "You referenced Kierkegaard."  
  
"Indeed.  _Be that self which one truly is._  And you were, so very much. It radiated. You weren't like everyone else there, either.  You were like fire in a crowd full of spent coals."  
  
"You made me feel cared about that night," Sören said. "I had hopes we could have been friends."  
  
Van nodded. "Well... here I am." He glanced at Dooku. "That is, if it doesn't step on your toes."  
  
Dooku shook his head. "My husband is not a slave, and is free to associate with whom he wishes. But, beyond that..." Dooku smiled. "I believe I should say thank you for taking care of him that night. He was having a rather difficult time of things from what he told me, and it seems that experience helped get him where he needed to be."  
  
"The offer of friendship extends to you as well," Van told him.  
  
"That would be nice," Sören said.  
  
"I appreciate that," Dooku said.  
  
Sören let out a small sigh. "And I appreciate your honesty, Van, about... Alejandro." He frowned. "I don't really know what I'm going to do about him and his, uh, need for closure, but I'm not going to ask him to leave."  
  
"If I may interject," Dooku said from the grill.  
  
"By all means," Van said. "This directly affects you, so I would expect you to have an opinion."  
  
Dooku looked at Sören. "As you know, we were separated for a time, and I came here looking for closure, and forgiveness."  
  
Sören snorted. "Jæja, and then I ended up letting you move in, and we got married a few months later."  
  
"Beyond that, though... you would have been within your rights to ask me to leave and never speak to you again, and you did not. You gave me a fair chance to explain myself. And even beyond hoping to rekindle things with you, I was hoping to find you were  _all right_ , and to clear up why things happened the way they did. I am not excusing what happened between you and Alejandro and whatever decisions he'd made. But from where I sit - or stand, as the case may be at present - I have some sympathy for him wanting to travel all this way to see you again, and as your partner, I think maybe your own healing process involves having a heart to heart with him. To give him the same chance to explain himself, as you gave to me over a year ago."  
  
Sören frowned, swirling the wine around in his glass, thinking it looked a lot like blood. "I don't know if I'm ready to have that talk with him."  
  
"And that's fine if you're not ready right now," Van said. "To be fair, he may not be ready to fully explain things on his end, either. And it may probably take more than one conversation, if and when you are both ready. There is... a lot... for the two of you to discuss, I think."  
  
Sören nodded. "Thank you for understanding."  
  
Van reached out to pat him, and the touch was like being shocked with a live wire. Sören felt himself hardening, glad that the picnic table was disguising his reaction, remembering the way Van had touched him that night four years ago, the best lover he had ever had next to Dooku and Alejandro.  
  
Van licked his lips between sips of wine, and Sören's cock twinged. He shielded himself as tightly as he could, not wanting Dooku to pick up on the reaction across their Force bond, in case it made things awkward. But  _fuck_ , Van was still hot. Possibly even hotter now, for showing his concern and interest for everyone involved.  
  
 _Jesus Christ, get a hold of yourself,_  Sören told himself, sipping wine.  
  
The lamb skewers were ready, and Dooku brought them over. They smelled delicious, and tasted even better than they smelled. Sören and Van complimented the chef, which made Dooku give that small, proud smile. He reached to take Sören's hand under the table, and squeezed it.  
  
 _I love you, you know,_  Dooku told him across their Force bond, turning his head to look into Sören's eyes.  
  
 _I love you too._  Sören leaned over to nuzzle him.  
  
"The two of you are very cute together, I must say," Van said. A little wicked grin. "You make quite an attractive couple."  
  
Dooku blushed, and Sören laughed nervously, and then the mental image of them having a threesome flashed in his head, which then, insanely, turned into a foursome with Alejandro. Sören shielded himself harder than he ever had in his life.  _God. No. I can't be having thoughts like this. What the FUCK. Settle down, you fucking horndog. Besides, you're still fucking_  PISSED  _at Alejandro. He doesn't get forgiveness that easily, let alone a pass into my pants._  
  
"So," Van said, "I mean what I say about wanting to get to know you better, Sören. What is your schedule like?"  
  
"Well," Sören said, "I run Logifugl Listaskóli over in Akureyri. I work three weekends a month, and on the weeks where I work all weekend, I give myself one day off during the week. I happen to be off on Sunday this weekend, but Nico, what are your plans?"  
  
"I'm flexible," Dooku said. "If you wanted to spend time with your friend on Sunday, I'd be happy taking a motorbike ride. The weather's supposed to be nice."  
  
Sören met Van's eyes. "Does that work for you?"  
  
"That certainly works for me." Van smiled. "You're more familiar with this part of the country than I am, I think, so I'll let you decide what activities you'd like for the day."  
  
 _I'd like you to fuck my brains out again._  Sören wanted to kick himself, still bearing down on his Force shielding.  _No, dammit, brain, we are_ not _going there._

_Why not?_

_Because. Just... hhrrrnnngghhhh._  
  
Van poured more wine, and raised his glass in a toast. "To the start of a beautiful friendship."


	12. I'm Not Crying, It's Just Been Raining On My Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With a little shout-out to Narya's AU! ;D

**I'm Not Crying, It's Just Been Raining On My Face**

 

Thursday was a fairly uneventful day, and then Friday came. While Sören held his afternoon classes, the local chess club was meeting at the Akureyri library, which Dooku liked to attend. A half-hour before his last class of the day ended, he got a text from Dooku.  
  
_Dearest, I was so engrossed in writing before the meeting that I didn't have time to go to the store, and we need more cat litter._  
  
Dooku did the grocery shopping often enough that Sören didn't mind doing it, and indeed, wanted to feel like he was contributing a bit more.  _I can go to the store,_  he texted back.  _Do I need to get stuff for dinner too?_  
  
_Something quick and easy. I was going to grill outside, but it's raining._  
  
Sören thought for a moment.  _You fine with frozen pizza?_  
  
_LOL. I shall endure._  
  
Sören snickered - before they'd met, Dooku had never even had pizza. They had a wood stove, which made frozen pizza more palatable on the rare occasions they had it.  
  
On the way back from Logifugl Listaskóli, Sören took a detour to the supermarket, picking up a frozen pizza, a carton of ice cream, a bottle of ginger ale, a few other random assorted food items, and then, a 30 liter bag of cat litter. While Sören had a slim figure, he wasn't as physically active as his husband, and he heard himself wheezing as he took down the bag from the shelf and put it in the cart. Once he put it in the trunk of his jeep, he needed to take a puff from his asthma inhaler, which he didn't have to do often, but was glad to have on hand for times like this.  
  
It had been raining for most of the day and the rain had mostly let up now and it was drizzling, with a mist that gave the spectacular landscape a haunted feeling as Sören drove back. It was the right sort of atmosphere for Sören's goth rock playlist, which, despite his attire, was only more of a sometimes thing since...  
  
_Alejandro._  
  
Alejandro's music had a touch of influence from Cocteau Twins and The Cure, while still sounding original. He had been a big fan of Depeche Mode in particular, and anything on the Projekt label. He listened to other genres - he'd taught Sören to appreciate classical and jazz; Alejandro had been a classically trained pianist before taking up guitar - but he defaulted to goth, which made sense considering that deep melancholy Sören had felt in him, a lifetime of regret so deep he could barely talk about it.  
  
So though Sören had enjoyed bands such as Joy Division, New Order, and Siouxsie and the Banshees long before meeting Alejandro - it had been the soundtrack to his angsty teenage years - such was the association with his ex-lover, the goth, that he couldn't do it often, the last few years.  
  
But today, it was the kind of day for that. "New Dawn Fades" by Joy Division played as Sören drove slowly from Akureyri into Svalbarðseyri, through the silver mists swirling around the view of the fjord.  
  
_A change of speed, a change of style.  
A change of scene, with no regrets,  
A chance to watch, admire the distance,  
Still occupied, though you forget.  
Different colours, different shades,  
Over each mistakes were made.  
I took the blame.  
Directionless so plain to see,  
A loaded gun won't set you free.  
So you say.  
We'll share a drink and step outside,  
An angry voice and one who cried,  
'We'll give you everything and more,  
The strain's too much, can't take much more.'  
I've walked on water, run through fire,  
Can't seem to feel it anymore.  
It was me, waiting for me,  
Hoping for something more,  
Me, seeing me this time,  
Hoping for something else._  
  
Sören sighed.  _Well, if this isn't the most accurate song ever._  
  
He pulled onto his street and "Walking In My Shoes" by Depeche Mode started. And then, some meters in the distance, coming out of the fog, was Alejandro, walking Auli.  
  
_Oh my fucking god, I summoned him._  
  
Sören was in front of his cottage and he considered just waiting in the jeep till Alejandro passed by, but not only did he have perishables to put away, he didn't feel like spending the rest of the summer hiding from Alejandro. _YOU came here to MY turf._  
  
Sören shut off the engine and got out of the jeep.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Even dressed down in skinny jeans and a Nine Inch Nails T-shirt, Sören somehow managed to look gorgeous. His curls were curlier in the humid air, and Maglor watched Sören watching him, looking away, then stealing another look at him.  
  
Those beautiful dark brown eyes, like melted chocolate, warm and expressive. Today, they expressed sorrow, looking at him. Sorrow he'd caused.  
  
Maglor didn't just see it in those eyes, he felt it. He heard it, in the Song, echoing in the swirling mists around them, as if those mists had been made of their mutual unshed tears.  
  
_Thou dost not know how sorry I am, beloved._  Maglor swallowed hard, paused in his tracks, watching Sören open the trunk of his jeep.  _If circumstances were different, I would have married thee. If thou wert also immortal, I would have spent eternity with thee, without hesitation._  
  
Fate was cruel, and it seemed that his was to lose all he loved.  
  
He watched Sören bring bags to his doorstep, and then Sören turned around and returned to the jeep. When he saw Sören struggling with the 30 liter sack of cat litter, giving a telltale asthmatic wheeze, he  _acted_ , not thinking about it. He tied Auli's leash to Sören's mailbox, and walked over, taking the large bag of cat litter like it weighed nothing.  
  
Sören gave him a look, but didn't stop him. Maglor carried the bag to Sören's doorstep, and Sören opened the door. He picked up the bags of groceries from the doorstep and brought them in. Maglor then took a step inside Sören's cabin, and gingerly lay the sack of cat litter down next to the door.  
  
He was about to head back out the door and walk away, and then Sören said, "Alejandro. Wait."  
  
Maglor blinked, and stopped.  
  
Sören cleared his throat. " _Takk_ ," he said, his voice rough with raw emotion. "You... didn't have to do that, but you did. That was kind of you."  
  
Maglor slowly turned around, and their eyes met.  
  
"Um..." Sören ran a hand through his curls, looking down, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "Do you want to stay for a bit? Have coffee or tea?"  
  
Maglor took a deep breath, and gave a nod. "I'd like that, thank you, Sören."  
  
Sören walked to the wood stove, and put on a kettle. "Do you want coffee or tea?"  
  
"Whatever you're having."  
  
"Coffee it is, then." Sören looked at him again. "You still take yours the same way?"  
  
_He remembered._  Maglor found himself smiling a little, and nodded again. "I do, yes."  
  
"You can shut the door," Sören said, "it's too damp to leave it open."  
  
Auli would be fine tied up to the mailbox post for a short while. Maglor gently closed the door, and Sören gestured at the couch. "Sit," he said. Maglor sat.  
  
Sören sat in the rocking chair across from him, and they spent a moment just looking at each other in awkward silence. Maglor waited for Sören to make the first move, and finally Sören found his words. "I, ah. My husband and I," Sören said, emphasizing the word  _husband_ , "met with Van the other night."  
  
"I know."  
  
"He told me that you showing up here wasn't the eerie coincidence I thought it was." Sören folded his arms. "So, five years after you broke my heart, you decided you wanted to, what, check in on me and make sure I'm all right?"  
  
"Pretty much, yes."  
  
Sören pursed his lips. "Why?"  
  
"What do you mean, why?" Maglor shrugged. "We had a very intense, very passionate relationship, and you know as well as I do that feelings don't turn on and off like a switch. It's possible to still care about someone after a relationship ends. And..." Sören was starting to look away again, fidgeting in discomfort, and Maglor challenged his gaze, for their eyes to lock once more. "You also know as well as I do that you have a very sensitive heart. That fire in you has come close to going out more than once. So... I wanted to make sure you were all right, yes. Still alive. Still... you."  
  
Sören snorted. "So what, you can feel bloody better about yourself for leaving me the way you did?"  
  
"Sören, words cannot express how much I regret all of... that."  
  
"Jæja, sure." Sören's tone indicated he didn't believe that at all. But there was a wisp of a broadcast -  _I want to believe._  
  
_Oh, Sören._  Melindo.  _Thou hast no idea how much I ache to hold thee._  
  
The kettle whistled, and Sören got up. He made coffee for each of them - instant, but it was Spanish coffee, so it wasn't so bad - and made them both with cream and two sugars. He brought over two mugs, and handed Maglor his before taking his seat again.  
  
"Mow?" A black-and-white, medium-haired cat with a pink nose and yellow-green eyes came over to Sören, and Sören proceeded to fuss over the cat, stroking and talking baby talk in Icelandic. Maglor smiled, not able to help himself, while also feeling a pang at how  _adorable_  it was. Sören still had that bewitching innocence to him, which had been not just a joy in his life, giving him something other than bitterness, but had made their sensual pleasure that much more decadent and delicious.  
  
Then the cat came over to him to sniff. Maglor patted the seat next to him on the couch and the cat hopped up and allowed himself to be pet. "You got a cat," he said. "He's lovely - I assume that's a he?"  
  
Sören nodded. "His name is Snúdur."  
  
Maglor laughed. "You named him -"  
  
"Cinnamon Roll, já, Van remarked on it too." Sören rolled his eyes, but he had just the faintest touch of a smile.  
  
Then Sören glared at him. "So, not that this is any of my business, but your boyfriend over there."  
  
Maglor's jaw set. "He's not my -"  
  
Sören's breath came out in a hiss. "For fuck's sake, Alejandro, don't give me that 'I don't like labels' shit." Sören sipped his coffee. "Like I was saying... Van. This isn't my business, but what's going on with your wife? Does she know?"  
  
"I am not married now." The choice of wording was deliberate. He had, in fact, been married once, a very long time ago. It ended on a  _most_  unfortunate note - the only good thing to come of it had been a son, and even that conception had been cursed, his son's existence mixed blessing and grief, at long last for his son to fade out of his life, gone Eru only knew where after the fall of Gil-galad. All of that was something he had been punishing himself for, over aeons. Indeed, he had scarcely felt worthy of Sören's love, Sören's touch -  
  
"Fucking told you so," Sören muttered under his breath. Then Sören said, in his normal tone of voice, "So at least you're not running around behind her back with that guy."  
  
"No. But Sören, Van and I -"  
  
Sören put out his hand. "Again, this is not my business."  
  
Maglor leaned back against the couch, took his coffee, and sipped.  
  
Another few moments of awkward silence passed, and Maglor said, finally, "But you are married."  
  
"Yes." Sören flashed the ring on his finger, white gold. "We got married in September of last year. Married not quite a year yet, but we've been together since November 17."  
  
"I'm happy for you." He wasn't, really, but he wanted  _Sören_  to be happy, more than his own happiness.  
  
Sören nodded. "I have a nice little life up here."  
  
"It seems you do, yes. I'll still be staying at the cottage until the end of August, to make sure it stays fine."  
  
"How  _thoughtful_  of you."  
  
"If you truly want me to leave, Sören, I will. Van told you that, too. But..." Maglor sighed, took another sip of his coffee, and put the mug down. "There's so much I need to say, and I don't know where or how to begin."  
  
Sören shrugged. "I'm not going to ask you to leave. But I don't know what I can offer you."  
  
"I understand. I know this is a lot, me showing up here unannounced."  
  
_It's not the first time it's happened to me,_  Sören broadcasted, and Maglor wondered what all that was about. He had a feeling he'd find out soon enough.  
  
Then the door opened.  
  
On the flight to Iceland, Vanimórë had told Maglor that Sören was with someone much older than himself, who had maybe twenty years left to live at most. Maglor didn't quite know what he was expecting, but he was not expecting what walked through the door.  
  
The man was six-foot-five, and stood not just tall but proud, with a similar posture and gait to all those Maglor had known of royal blood.  _Like my father and uncle._  He had a lean but powerful build, moving swiftly and with grace, like a large predatory cat. He didn't simply enter the cabin, but he  _owned_  the space he was in... yet quietly, with reserved dignity, soft power. He wore a long brown cape set with a silver knotwork clasp, over a black tunic and trousers - simple but elegant, and rather out of place in rural Iceland, deliberately so. Short silver hair combed back, and a neatly trimmed silver beard and mustache. High cheekbones, slightly crooked patrician nose, thick salt-and-pepper brows, sharp features, hawk-like dark eyes that seemed to look through him rather than at him, keenly observant. Elderly though he might be, he was still very much  _alive_ , radiating vigor and vitality. He was also still quite handsome - he and Sören looked well together.  
  
And they also  _fit_. Sören burned like fire, and his husband was like the open ocean - seemingly calm, but there was much there, teeming with life beneath the waves, hidden beauty, hidden dangers. That cool, ever-flowing water kept Sören from burning himself to death, and Sören kept those waters free of ice. The purple-green aurora fire of Sören reflected over a midnight sea, illuminating the depths within.  
  
"Nico!" Sören's face lit up, and he bounced up from the rocking chair to throw his arms around the taller, older man, who hugged him, but gave a concerned look over his shoulder. Sören patted him reassuringly, and then he said, "Nico, this is my ex, Alejandro Magalhães. Alejandro, this is my husband, Nicolae Dooku."  
  
"How do you do," Dooku said, all formality, coming over to shake his hand.  
  
He envied the old man, getting to taste those full, soft lips, to caress the silk of Sören's body, to feel the all-consuming fire of the way Sören loved. But as angry as he had been - and still was - at Vanimórë for taking him,  _taking what was mine_ , he could not bring himself to hate someone who made Sören smile that smile, the light of the world. He took Dooku's hand and shook it, one gentleman to another.  
  
"Nico, Alejandro brought in that huge sack of cat litter behind you, so I decided to invite him in for coffee."  
  
"That's fine." Dooku gave a small, polite smile. "Thank you for helping him with that. He has asthma -"  
  
"I know." Maglor resisted the urge to say  _I know Sören's body very well._  
  
Dooku turned to Sören then with a disapproving look. "You could have gotten a smaller bag, you know."  
  
"Já, I could, but we'd go through it faster and it's a pain in the arse to get, so I decided to get one that would last awhile," Sören explained.   
  
"That makes logical sense to a point, but not with your asthma," Dooku said. "Get a smaller bag next time unless I'm there with you." Then Dooku turned to Maglor and said, "My apologies. I'm sure you truly wanted to spend your time observing our little domestic banalities."  
  
Sören's laughter rang out - that wild, full-bodied, raucous laugh he'd missed so much, effervescent, sparkling in his light. Dooku's eyes twinkled at Sören, as he broadcast that he loved that laugh too.  
  
"It's no problem," Maglor said. "I should probably be on my way anyway. I don't want to intrude, and poor Auli is probably going crazy out there tied up."  
  
"All right." Sören walked Maglor to the door, and held it open for him. Maglor lingered for a moment, and so did Sören. "Thank you, again, for helping me bring that in," Sören said softly.  
  
"You're welcome. Anytime." Maglor ached to touch him, and reined in those impulses. "Thank you for the coffee, and for, well... not asking me to leave."  
  
"I, ah." Sören ran a hand through his curls. "I can't quite make any offers of friendship right now, but I can be open to closure, if that makes sense."  
  
"It does." It was what he wanted to hear. "So I'll see you sometime, then."  
  
Sören nodded. "We'll take things as they go."  
  
Maglor walked to Sören's mailbox, where Auli whined at the sight of him. "I'm sorry, little guy," he said, taking the leash off the post. "Let's continue our walk, yes?" He wasn't ready to go back to the cottage yet, especially not if Vanimórë was there.  
  
He walked back into the fog, letting the drizzle disguise his tears, mingled sorrow and relief.  
  
  
_  
  
  
The frozen deluxe pizza was no longer frozen, wonderfully crispy from the wood stove. Sören cautiously nibbled the hot pizza, not wanting to burn his mouth. He rolled his eyes and cackled at Dooku using a knife and fork on his slices.  
  
"Seriously?"  
  
"What?" Dooku raised an eyebrow. "Is it such a bad thing to have table manners?"  
  
"Well, no." Sören smirked. "It's kind of cute."  
  
"I am not cute  _anddon'tyoueven_  -"  
  
Too late. "Hi not cute -"  
  
Dooku jokingly waved his knife in Sören's direction, and Sören wiggled his eyebrows and made a throaty growl that Dooku  _blushed_  at.  
  
"You look kind of hot with a knife," Sören told him, truthfully. He remembered Valentine's Day, when Dooku tied him up and teased him. The thought of Dooku holding a knife to his throat, as he proved he trusted his husband with his life...  
  
...or perhaps doing the same to Dooku...  
  
Sören gave a shudder at that, a frisson of delicious lust, and licked his lips without thinking about it. At the look Dooku gave him, Sören said, "Er, the pizza looks good."  
  
"Are you... having dirty thoughts."  
  
"Am I ever not having dirty thoughts."  
  
Dooku laughed, a belly laugh, that Sören grinned at. He loved making Dooku laugh like this, remembering how sad the older man had been when they first met. His days were full of laughter and banter like this now.  
  
"The erotica writer is asking me if I'm having dirty thoughts," Sören teased, before using the Force to steal Dooku's knife, pick off a piece of sausage from the pizza, and put it in his mouth, sucking on it before chewing.  
  
"Dear god." Dooku laughed again, blushing deeper, before using the Force to steal his fork back.  
  
"So, ah." Sören looked at his pizza, then at Dooku, then at his pizza again, wondering how to broach the topic of Alejandro.  
  
"MROWR?" Snúdur came over to beg, giving them the most pathetic sad face a cat had ever made.  
  
"No, you beggar, cats do not eat pizza," Dooku said. "You have food in your dish."  
  
" _MOW._ "  
  
"Unless you're asking, 'where has my new friend gone?'" Sören's voice became a baby talk squeak as he skritched the cat. "Huh. Those new people who came to give you pettings and then went back to a stinky dog, you want everyone to just worship you, oh yes you do! Yes you do, my little sweet bun baby boy."  
  
Dooku chuckled, and Sören laughed too as the cat flopped over for belly rubs. Then Sören became more serious and said, "Um, thank you for not freaking out about Alejandro being here."  
  
"I trust you," Dooku said, and Sören could feel sincerely that he meant it.  
  
"I know you said I should hear out his side of things," Sören said, "and I want you to know I'm at least considering it."  
  
Dooku nodded.  
  
"I don't know how things are gonna be," Sören said honestly. "Best-case scenario, maybe he and I could be friends again. I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss him. But it'll take time, and it'll take discussion. So, if you're out one day and you come back and he's here..."  
  
"I get it," Dooku said. "But also, I'll be going down the street to check in on the dog, and be neighborly. I could, perhaps, mediate between the two of you as needed. I was a barrister for a very long time."  
  
"You could," Sören said, nodding. "Neither Alejandro nor myself have the best people skills. We were these two weird loners, inhabiting the same weird wavelength." Sören nibbled pizza, remembering. "We got each other in a way other people didn't get us. But damn if we didn't fuck that all to hell when he walked away from me."  
  
Dooku reached across to squeeze Sören's hand. "One man's loss is another man's gain," he husked.  
  
Sören leaned over and kissed him, not caring that they had mouths full of melted cheese. Sören stroked his cheek, his whiskers, and gently rubbed his chest. Snúdur took the opportunity to put his front paws on Sören's knees and lean in to try to snipe a stray bit of cheese, and Sören snatched the plate away just in time.  
  
"No," Sören said, wagging his finger. "Cats do not eat pizza."  
  
Snúdur gave a pathetic tiny peep like a starving kitten, and it made Sören double over, laughing. "What a little actor you are," Sören teased, chucking the cat's chin. "Yes, we feel so, so sorry for you, you've never had food in your  _life_ , let alone gourmet canned cat food sitting in your dish over there..."  
  
"Clearly," Dooku said, "he wants a taste of something different. He may need a treat, then go back to be satisfied with his cat food. I suppose that's not unreasonable - we humans don't eat the same thing every day, after all."  
  
For some reason, Sören thought of Van, and he clamped his mental shielding down as fast as he could, not wanting Dooku to pick up on the attraction that was still very much present, the strange desire he had to taste Van again, which in no way meant he wasn't also hungry for Dooku. He felt greedy - he wanted them both.  
  
_Alejandro's still hot as fuck, too. Just saying.  
  
Will you _shut  _up,_  Sören argued with himself.  
  
Sören's jaw set, not wanting to argue with himself on what was supposed to be a lighthearted Friday evening.  
  
Dooku did dishes, while Sören gave Snúdur a couple of cat treats that were also good for cleaning teeth, and more pettings. Once the dishes were done, Dooku sat down at his desk to resume writing, and Sören logged into Stardew Valley to take care of his farm, and received notifications that he'd been pinged in the family chat server again.  _Of course._  He'd been avoiding it the last few days, but he was in a somewhat better mood now, so he logged in.  
  
_Sören Sigurdsson is typing..._  
  
**[7:09 PM] Sören:**  what's up thots  
  
**[7:11 PM] Frankie:**  it takes one to know one  
  
**[7:12 PM] Sören:**  I love you too  
  
**[7:13 PM] Sören:**  @everyone  
  
**[7:14 PM] Frankie:**  OH GOD LOLOLOLOLOL  
  
**[7:14 PM] Sören:**  WHY DO Y'ALL KEEP PINGING ME  
  
**[7:16 PM] Dagnýr:**  Jesus Christ Sören you did NOT just do an @/everyone  
  
**[7:17 PM] Sören:**  u mad bro  
  
**[7:19 PM] Margrét:**  *puts on mod hat* Sören pls  
  
**[7:20 PM] Ari:**  It could be worse. There's another server I'm in where someone did an @/everyone with an mp4 that was the entire Shrek movie. And if you clicked on it, it downloaded.  
  
**[7:21 PM] Margrét:**  OK  _listen_ , you,  _my entire fucking life_  is the entire fucking Shrek movie, and Donkey just showed up.  
  
**[7:22 PM] Dagnýr:**  I can't unsee Sören and Nicolae as Donkey and Dragon now, thanks I hate it  
  
**[7:23 PM] Ari:**  I was wrong about it being worse  
  
**[7:23 PM] Ari:**  I'm leaving  
  
**[7:24 PM] Sören:**  hi leaving I'm Sören  
  
**[7:25 PM] Ari:**  SÖREN NO  
  
**[7:25 PM] Dagnýr:**  ...what have I done  
  
**[7:26 PM] Sören:**  WHOMST HAS SUMMONETH ME

[Image: the "Elmo Satan" reaction GIF]

 

 **[7:27 PM] Dagnýr:**  I did as usual, because I worry.  
  
**[7:28 PM] Dagnýr:**  A bit less so, now.  
  
**[7:29 PM] Dagnýr:**  I take it things are getting back to normal, for some off-brand definition of "normal".  
  
**[7:30 PM] Sören:**  yes and no?  
  
**[7:31 PM] Margrét:**  o rly  
  
**[7:31 PM] Margrét:**  Do I need to come up there?  
  
**[7:32 PM] Sören:**  nah it's not like that  
  
**[7:33 PM] Sören:**  shit just got kind of weird, is all  
  
**[7:34 PM] Ari:**  Wow, when  _you_  say stuff is weird, that's... a thing.  
  
**[7:35 PM] Frankie:**  

[Image: Reaction GIF of a man pulling out a folding chair and sitting down, captioned DIS GUN B GUD.]

 

 **[7:36 PM] Sören:**  apparently Alejandro is here for *~closure~*  
  
**[7:37 PM] Margrét:**

****

[Image: the "confused Nick Young" meme.]

 

 **[7:39 PM] Dagnýr:**  NANI THE FUCK  
  
**[7:40 PM] Margrét:**  What exactly does that even mean? Didn't he get this closure when he, oh I don't know, CLOSED THE FUCKING DOOR AND PUSHED YOU OUT INTO THE COLD five fucking years ago?  ~~and then left me with a mess to clean up~~  
  
**[7:41 PM] Sören:**  I  _sort of_  get it? He brought up my mental health issues and wanting to make sure I'm actually OK and life is treating me OK.  
  
**[7:42 PM] Margrét:**  yeahno he could have had a fuck to give about that FIVE YEARS AGO and not, you know, BROKE YOUR HEART LIKE HE DID  
  
**[7:43 PM] Margrét:**  Seriously, you say the word, and Frankie and I will FLY up there and come kick this guy's arse.  
  
**[7:44 PM] Sören:**  not necessary, but I appreciate the thought.  
  
**[7:45 PM] Margrét:**  :knife:  
  
**[7:46 PM] Frankie:**  :dagger:  
  
**[7:49 PM] Qui-Gon:**  Wait, what's going on? Why are we stabbing people? Why did I get a ping?  
  
**[7:51 PM] Sören:**  Qui, I don't know where you've been lately, but one of my ex-partners showed up last week. he's having a crisis of conscience or smth  
  
**[7:53 PM] Margrét:**  you are not his therapist  
  
**[7:54 PM] Qui-Gon:**  That sounds incredibly awkward. I'm sorry you're going through this.  
  
**[7:55 PM] Frankie:**  Are you very sure he's not stalking you? Or otherwise acting like, you know, Justin?  
  
**[7:56 PM] Sören:**  I'm reasonably sure, and god, no, let's not even go there with Justin. That's not even apples and oranges, that's moldy, rotten-ass apples and, ah  
  
**[7:57 PM] Sören:**  :eggplant:  
  
**[7:59 PM] Dagnýr:**  Did you just make a dick joke about Alejandro  
  
**[8:01 PM] Sören:** : ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[8:04 PM] Margrét:**  not in my good Christian chat server

[Image: The "holy water eye drops" reaction pic.]

 **[8:05 PM] Margrét:**  Speaking of which! Kol says hi  
  
**[8:06 PM] Sören:** : OMG, Kol! You've seen him lately?  
  
**[8:06 PM] Margrét:**  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[8:07 PM] Sören:** :  _oh_  
  
**[8:07 PM] Sören:** : oh boy  
  
**[8:08 PM] Frankie:**  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[8:09 PM] Sören:** : :eyes:  
  
**[8:09 PM] Sören:** : FRANKIE WHAT  
  
**[8:10 PM] Frankie:**  I might be  _a little_  bi and not 100% lesbian like I thought  
  
**[8:10 PM] Frankie:**  in fairness, he is really pretty  
  
**[8:11 PM] Sören:** : well yes, he is  
  
**[8:11 PM] Sören:** : I just can't... wow, you're into a dude?  
  
**[8:12 PM] Frankie:**  sort of, and just the one.  
  
**[8:12 PM] Sören:** : and that's not, like, making things weird with the two of you?  
  
**[8:13 PM] Margrét:**  Well,  _no._  Being poly means that we, you know, talk about things like that, define our boundaries, etc.  
  
**[8:12 PM] Sören:** : hm  
  
**[8:13 PM] Margrét:**  hm what  
  
**[8:14 PM] Sören:** : Kol is like two feet taller than Frankie LMAO  
  
**[8:15 PM] Frankie:**  he is a lorge boi  
  
**[8:15 PM] Frankie:**  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[8:15 PM] Margrét:**  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[8:17 PM] Dagnýr:**

****

[Image: Jack Black is holding a sign that says STOP next to Elmo.]

 **[8:17 PM] Dagnýr:**  I swear nobody else's family knows as much about each other's sex lives as we know about each other's  
  
**[8:18 PM] Margrét:**  I'm pretty sure nobody else's family is as weird as ours, period  
  
**[8:19 PM] Sören:** : hi pretty sure nobody else's family is as weird as ours, period  
  
**[8:21 PM] Margrét:**  :knife:  
  
**[8:23 PM] Dagnýr:** Well actually, now seems like a really good time to bring up my own weird shit.  
  
**[8:24 PM] Sören:** : :popcorn:  
  
**[8:25 PM] Dagnýr:** Now that my TED talk is done and I have less classes to teach over the summer...  
  
**[8:26 PM] Dooku:**  Fewer.  
  
**[8:27 PM] Sören:** : WOOP WOOP IT'S THE GRAMMAR POLICE  
  
**[8:27 PM] Dooku:**  :squint:  
  
**[8:27 PM] Dooku:**  Carry on.  
  
**[8:28 PM] Dagnýr:** SO AS I WAS SAYING  
  
**[8:28 PM] Dagnýr:** I have some more free time on my hands, and on the advice of one of my esteemed colleagues, I'll be pursuing an area of both academic and personal interest.  
  
**[8:29 PM] Sören:** : so are you gonna, like, try to jerry-rig a hadron collider in your basement  
  
**[8:30 PM] Dagnýr:**  LOL no  
  
**[8:31 PM] Matt:**  No, that's just our sex dungeon  
  
**[8:32 PM] Matt:**  it's advanced  
  
**[8:34 PM] Sören:** : er  
  
**[8:35 PM] Margrét:**  uh  
  
**[8:38 PM] Matt:**  that was a joke, guys  
  
**[8:39 PM] Matt:**  mostly  
  
**[8:41 PM] Margrét:**

[Image: The "holy water eye drops" reaction pic.]

 **[8:44 PM] Ari:**  I'm back what did I miss  
  
**[8:46 PM] Ari:**  

[Image: the "Pizza Fire" reaction GIF]

 **[8:48 PM] Dagnýr:**  HOKAY SO  
  
**[8:49 PM] Dagnýr:**  AS I WAS SAYING  
  
**[8:50 PM] Dagnýr:**  One of my colleagues, a math professor named Brian, encouraged me to go ahead with this.  
  
**[8:52 PM] Dagnýr:**  You know our aunt Gitta, who lives in Scotland?  
  
**[8:53 PM] Margrét:**  um... no  
  
**[8:54 PM] Margrét:**  Wait, that's Mamma's sister Birgitta, right? Birgitta Jónsdóttir?  
  
**[8:52 PM] Dagnýr:**  Yes. She moved to St. Andrews, this really tiny town in Scotland, back in the 80s when we were smols.  
  
**[8:54 PM] Sören:** : *takes a deep breath* well, this got awkward  
  
**[8:55 PM] Dagnýr:**  Yeah, so I heard.  
  
**[8:56 PM] Margrét:**  what?  
  
**[8:57 PM] Sören:** : when I was in my early twenties - I want to say this was right after your first suicide attempt - Gitta  _called_  me. like out of the blue, I don't know how she got my number. and I just, like, tore her a new arsehole  
  
**[8:59 PM] Sören:** : I tore into her about how she wasn't there and Katrín and Einar abused us, and maybe if she had actually been around all this shit wouldn't have happened and it was too late for her to start giving a fuck, etc etc ad nauseum  
  
**[9:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  Yeah Sören, you put your foot in it.  
  
**[9:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  You didn't even give her a chance to explain why she hadn't been there, you just yelled.  
  
**[9:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  Do you know why she wasn't around?  
  
**[9:03 PM] Sören:** : I'm assuming you're gonna tell me I fucked up somehow  
  
**[9:04 PM] Dagnýr:**  Oh yeah, you fucked up big. The reason why she wasn't in contact with us while we were growing up under that roof?  _She wasn't allowed._  
  
**[9:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  She is a lesbian.  
  
**[9:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  She is a practicing Wiccan.  
  
**[9:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  She moved to Scotland to be with her Scottish girlfriend, who is now her wife. Even before Kat found *~the Jesus~*, she still had a  _bit_  of a problem with Gitta.  
  
**[9:06 PM] Sören:** : oh  _shit_  
  
**[9:06 PM] Sören:** : I uh  
  
**[9:06 PM] Sören:** : *lays down*  
  
**[9:07 PM] Dagnýr:**  She decided after that phone call to not try. I was the first one of us to get in touch with her after that.  
  
**[9:08 PM] Dagnýr:**  And I feel kind of shitty that it took me doing this project to do so, but, what's done has been done. Fortunately, Gitta at least  _understands_  why you had the reaction you did, back then.  
  
**[9:09 PM] Sören:** : I owe her a huge fucking apology. If you could DM me her contact info later...  
  
**[9:11 PM] Dagnýr:** : You got it. But anyway, I AM FINALLY GETTING TO THE POINT HERE  
  
**[9:12 PM] Sören:** :  ~~hi FINALLY GETTING TO THE POINT HERE~~  
  
**[9:13 PM] Margrét:**  SÖREN  
  
**[9:13 PM] Margrét:**  BOI  
  
**[9:13 PM] Margrét:**  I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD  
  
**[9:14 PM] Dagnýr:**  Soooooo the project I'm researching  
  
**[9:15 PM] Sören:** :  ~~hi researching~~  
  
**[9:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  :knife:  
  
**[9:16 PM] Margrét:**  :knife:  
  
**[9:17 PM] Dagnýr:**  That rumour that we're elf-blooded? That Mamma mentioned a couple times when we were smols? I asked Gitta about it and she said that her grandmother - named Margrét, incidentally - was a wealth of information about that subject. Gitta had quite a lot to say about it.  
  
**[9:18 PM] Dagnýr:**  Gitta inherited a family Bible, which she keeps even though that's not her religion anymore, and it has a family tree in it. That family tree goes back to  _the late 1700s_ , which will make it WAY easier for me to do some research past that, and try to track down the source of this rumour. There's GOT to be some blurb or something SOMEWHERE about an odd ancestor of ours, with clues that will either point to aliens, or just people making shit up. But I think it's aliens. Either way, I intend on finding out one way or the other.  
  
**[9:21 PM] Dooku:**  I heard that Icelanders have been rather meticulous about documenting family lines and histories since the Saga days.  
  
**[9:23 PM] Dagnýr:**  Pretty much. So I can use the notes in this Bible as a reference when I look at databases, so that way if I come across a Jón Jónsson or something I can narrow it down instead of poking at 50 different Jón Jónssons within the same time period. LOL.  
  
**[9:25 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'm going elf hunting, y'all.  
  
**[9:25 PM] Dagnýr:**  The truth is out there, somewhere, and I want to find it for science.  
  
**[9:26 PM] Dagnýr:**  I haven't made it a secret in my career as a scientist that I think Earth was visited by aliens, and I think I can find something to back this theory up somehow.  
  
**[9:28 PM] Dagnýr:**  But my colleague Brian finally pushed me off my ass about it. LOL. He had some opinions on the subject, like he thinks there were ancient civilizations here on Earth, no aliens involved, just different species of  _homo_ , that were destroyed. But he's just a math professor.  
  
**[9:30 PM] Dagnýr:**   ~~we may have been high AF when we had this discussion~~  
  
**[9:34 PM] Sören:**

****

[Image: The Ancient /ALIENS/ meme, but captioned with the word ELVES instead.]

 **[9:35 PM] Ari:**  This is really interesting.  
  
**[9:36 PM] Ari:**  I've sometimes wondered if Tolkien was visited by someone from elsewhere and his stories aren't entirely fictional.  
  
**[9:37 PM] Sören:**  y'all are crazy, but I love you  
  
**[9:39 PM] Sören:**  and now that I've checked in and proven I'm still alive and TOTALLY NOT HAVING A MELTDOWN OVER THIS ALEJANDRO THING, I'mma hop on Stardew Valley and farm before I get ready for bed.  
  
**[9:42 PM] Dagnýr:**  okies  
  
**[9:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'll DM you Gitta's info in a bit.  
  
**[9:46 PM] Sören:**  and seriously stop pinging me like every day? if I disappear for a few days at a time I swear to you I'm probably just painting, busy, or don't feel like being social. Nico will fucking  _call_  you if there's an emergency, OK?  
  
**[9:48 PM] Dagnýr:**  I understand but you know, twin Force bond?  
  
**[9:49 PM] Dagnýr:**  you're not as OK as you pretend to be  
  
**[9:51 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass. I just legitimately worry about you.  
  
**[9:53 PM] Sören:**  <3  
  
**[9:55 PM] Sören:**  I'll poke in chat in a couple days.  
  
**[9:56 PM] Sören:**  you know, unless I get abducted by elves! :D  
  
**[9:58 PM] Dagnýr:**  :squint:  
  
**[10:01 PM] Sören:**  (no seriously I don't mean to sound disrespectful of a project that's important to you)  
  
**[10:02 PM] Sören:**  much science. very aliens. so quantum. wow  
  
**[10:04 PM] Dagnýr:**  You're such a fucking dork.  
  
**[10:02 PM] Sören:**  so are you. <3  
  
**[10:03 PM] Sören:**  night everyone  
  
**[10:04 PM] Ari:**  Night!  
  
**[10:05 PM] Frankie:**  *ninja hugs*  
  
**[10:06 PM] Margrét:**  *noogies*


	13. Stirrings

**Stirrings**

 

On Saturday morning it was still foggy, but expected to clear and be sunny in the afternoon. Sören was off to Saturday classes at the studio - he'd be free on Sunday - and did his usual morning routine of checking e-mail, and found he had a ping on the family chat server, from his brother.  
  
_I thought I told that butt to quit pinging me every day._  
  
**[10:02 AM] Sören:**  DAG WHAT DO YOU WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNNT  
  
**[10:02 AM] Sören:**  WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT  
  
**[10:02 AM] Sören:**  WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT  
  
**[10:02 AM] Sören:**  WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT  
  
**[10:05 AM] Dagnýr:**  good morning to you too  
  
**[10:06 AM] Sören:**  first of all isn't it like 6 your time, what the fuck are you doing up at this hour  
  
**[10:07 AM] Dagnýr:**  Going over research and a lesson plan for my physics students.  
  
**[10:08 AM] Sören:**  second WHY DID YOU PING ME AGAIN  
  
**[10:08 AM] Sören:**  I explicitly asked you to stop pinging me every day.  
  
**[10:09 AM] Dagnýr:**  this was a @/everyone ping, as you'll find out if you check your notifications  
  
**[10:10 AM] Sören:**  you did an @/everyone? what kind of troll shit is this LOL  
  
**[10:11 AM] Dagnýr:**  I made an announcement.  
  
**[10:12 AM] Dagnýr:**  I'll just make it again since we're both here, so you don't have to scroll up  ~~and see all the shit we talked about your thot ass while you were gone~~  
  
**[10:13 AM] Sören:**  :knife: :middle finger:  
  
**[10:14 AM] Dagnýr:**  Matt and I wanted to wait until everything was absolutely sure and finalized before we mentioned this anywhere...  
  
**[10:15 AM] Sören:**  PLEASE tell me you two dorks are not breaking up  
  
**[10:16 AM] Dagnýr:**  uh no?  
  
**[10:16 AM] Dagnýr:**  I'd ask what would give you that idea  ~~but it's obvious the reappearance of Alejandro is making you assume the worst about people's relationships~~  
  
**[10:17 AM] Sören:**  :squint:  
  
**[10:17 AM] Sören:**  I told you I'm fine  
  
**[10:18 AM] Dagnýr:**  :ok_hand:  
  
**[10:18 AM] Dagnýr:**  AS I WAS SAYING, Matt and I have been playing this card close to our chests to make sure everything was all lined up before we said anything, but  
  
**[10:19 AM] Dagnýr:**  We found a surrogate mother.  
  
**[10:19 AM] Dagnýr:**  Her name is Nicole, and she lives in upstate New York.  
  
**[10:19 AM] Dagnýr:**  She came to stay with us for a few days last month to see what we were like before agreeing to be the egg donor.  
  
**[10:20 AM] Dagnýr:**  We're going to start everything next week.  
  
**[10:22 AM] Leja:**  I'M GONNA BE A GRANDMA? :DDDD  
  
**[10:23 AM] Dagnýr:**  YES YOU AND HANS WILL BE GRANDPARENTS  
  
**[10:24 AM] Sören:**  I'm gonna be an uncle? :D  
  
**[10:25 AM] Dagnýr:**  You're not just going to be an uncle, but Matt and I were talking and we'd like you to be the godfather.  
  
**[10:25 AM] Dagnýr:**  Which isn't just a fancy title, but we actually want you to have custody in case anything happens to us.  
  
**[10:25 AM] Sören:**  nothing better happen to you  
  
**[10:25 AM] Sören:**  but I'm... honoured? and surprised? why me and not Margrét as godmother?  
  
**[10:26 AM] Dagnýr:**  You have a cat.  
  
**[10:26 AM] Dagnýr:**  Also, on the odd chance Margrét ever gets Frankie pregnant... I don't want them overwhelmed by sudden influx of kids.  
  
**[10:27 AM] Sören:**  oh god  
  
**[10:28 AM] Dagnýr:**  But even without the "if we die while the child is of an age to need a guardian, that responsibility falls to you" hanging over your head...  
  
**[10:28 AM] Dagnýr:**  I want my offspring to have as much love and support as they can.  
  
**[10:28 AM] Dagnýr:**  So I expect you to be involved in their life.  
  
**[10:30 AM] Sören:**  well yeah of course  
  
**[10:31 AM] Sören:**   ~~boy I can't wait to be a horrible influence on these kids~~  
  
**[10:32 AM] Dagnýr:**  :squint:  
  
**[10:33 AM] Dagnýr:**  also, "kids" plural?  
  
**[10:33 AM] Dagnýr:**  :squint:  
  
**[10:34 AM] Sören:**   ~~I hope you have twins who troll the fuck out of you~~  
  
**[10:34 AM] Sören:**  anyway I gotta bounce, I have classes today  
  
**[10:35 AM] Sören:**  very very happy for you guys  
  
**[10:35 AM] Sören:**  you'll make great parents  
  
**[10:35 AM] Sören:**   ~~you already have the fussy worried thing down to, dare I say it, a science~~  
  
**[10:36 AM] Dagnýr:**  :squint:  
  
  
Sören hopped up and walked over to Dooku's desk, to throw his arms around the older man's neck and give him a big kiss. Dooku returned the kiss and nuzzled him, affectionately tousling Sören's curls.  
  
"It's nice to see you smiling," he said, chucking Sören's chin, stroking the corner of his mouth.  
  
"Am I smiling? I guess I am." Sören nodded. "You saw my brother's announcement in chat, I take it."  
  
"I did. I thought about telling you myself, but I felt it was something you had better see on your own." Dooku gave a small smile. "It's very good news."  
  
"It is." Sören felt a surge of pride for his brother, and that knife-to-the-gut touch at being asked to be the godfather, making him happy and sad all at once - it was an honor, but one Sören didn't know if he was worthy of. "He asked me to be the godfather, you know, in case something..." His voice trailed off.  
  
Dooku patted him, and took Sören's hands and squeezed. "I doubt anything will happen to him or Matt, they're still young and in good health -"  
  
_So were my parents._  Sören thought about his mother.  
  
" - but I think that you, yourself, would be a good father." Dooku looked down and sighed. "Sometimes I feel like I'm cheating you out of life because I'm really too old to become a father for the first time, now -"  
  
Sören put his finger to Dooku's lips. "We've been over that 'too old' shit. You're not cheating me out of anything. I made my choice to be with you. We take each day as it comes. I'd rather have you, as you are, than not be with you because of your age, even if I knew you would die tomorrow." Sören hugged him again. "Yes, telling the absolute honest truth sometimes I wonder about what it would be like to be a father, but it's not an urge so strong that I'm willing to sacrifice you for it." Sören pulled away reluctantly; he was already running a little late. His eyes were burning, threatening to shed tears, caught up in the emotion of the discussion threads running together. He loved his brother and was happy for him, he was touched to be made the godfather, and he wished Dooku didn't still feel guilty on some level for  _"condemning him to life with an old man"_. He stroked Dooku's whiskers, needing to defuse the bomb of feelings with humor, his usual coping mechanism. "Besides, there's probably some alternate universe or past life or whatever where I had seven kids or something."  
  
Dooku chuckled. "I'd pay to see that."  
  
"I'm sure all those children were  _super_  well-adjusted, with my... me-ness." Sören snickered. "It's like the Force looked at that and said 'NOPE, LET'S NOT DO THAT AGAIN.'"  
  
Dooku rolled his eyes. "Yes, they likely were subjected to enough cruelty with your dad jokes."  
  
"Exactly. And embarrassing them with wearing silly hats and yelling at crows to get off my lawn." Sören grinned, tickled by the absurdity of his own joke; his mind went strange places sometimes. "Shit, I really gotta run." He leaned in to peck Dooku again. "What are your plans for the day?"  
  
"I'm thinking about going for a stroll in a bit," Dooku said.  
  
"You're always so active." Sören leered. "Toning that gorgeous, ripped body and tight, hot arse of yours."  
  
Dooku blushed. "You have a one-track mind, dearest."  
  
"And you love it." Sören blew him a kiss on his way out, and gave his bad attempt at a wink.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Dooku was still blushing and feeling that flustered butterflies-in-the-stomach ten minutes after Sören's jeep drove away, as he got up to put the breakfast dishes in the sink and start washing them. When Sören was in a good mood, he downright  _sparkled_. He lived life so fully, so intensely - taking joy in the smallest things, like a big kid. Watching him create was an experience, the way he seemed to be transported somewhere else, the way the Living Force swirled and hummed around him as he brought his inner visions to life. His creative energy, his playful energy, was intoxicating. And he had a way of shining that on other people - he'd seen how Sören made his students smile and laugh, complimenting their work, giving them assurances if they had doubts. He'd seen Sören's kindness with Frankie, building her up when the world had worked overtime to try to cut her down. And it wasn't insincere flattery, Sören had said before he saw the beauty in everyone, and that he tried to foster and nurture that beauty. When he painted portraits of others, it was " _what their soul sings like_ ".  
  
When Sören turned that sparkle onto him, with his flirting and teasing... it made him feel like a sex god.  
  
It felt wonderful... and it felt unfair.  
  
He would be seventy-one in December. Yes, he knew that Sören didn't like him going on about their age difference and feeling like it was unfair to him, and indeed he'd tried to be "fair" and push Sören away, so he could find someone younger - he knew about Sören's time as an intern in med school, the way he'd had a breakdown after patients died and he felt it, he could only imagine the way Sören would be devastated when the inevitable happened with him. But the separation had devastated them both and he'd agreed to take things one day at a time. And there was a reasonable chance he'd have another ten or twenty years - he was already in excellent health and shape for his age when their relationship started, but moving to Iceland a year ago had been very good for him indeed, with the fresh air, abundance of local fish and lamb. He liked hiking and biking around the countryside, and he no longer had the occasional joint pain that had once plagued him. He felt more energetic than he had in decades.  
  
Dooku and Sören had a very healthy, passionate, and active sex life, making love at least once a day. Dooku didn't need Viagra - he'd only had inability to get an erection once, in a time of stress just before the unfortunate separation they had. He had an appetite and stamina, and enjoyed keeping Sören satisfied. Indeed, it was something he was secretly, quietly proud of.  
  
But he knew that as time went on, this wouldn't be forever. He wondered how much longer he had, before the inevitable decline, and when his randy husband would no longer get his needs met. And Sören being Sören, would claim he was "fine", and say things like "I have a hand." But Dooku knew it wasn't the same - he too had a hand when he and Sören were apart, and the blazing reality was far better than the glimmer of fantasy. Moreover, Dooku had noticed Sören's creative energy seemed linked to his sexual energy - when he was happy, in love, and making love frequently, he produced his best work, as Dooku had seen during his relationship with Sören, and the pieces Sören had produced while he was with Alejandro.  _Force_ , Sören had made beautiful art while he and Alejandro were together. Sören's soul was fed by his art, and being starved for expression, the magical act of creation, as he became starved for touch, for release... Dooku cringed at that, aching for him.  
  
There was the thought of how Sören would handle it all, when he finally went. He knew how Sören entered the downward spiral after the breakup with Alejandro, and during their own separation - even if this would not be intentional abandonment, if they would be together until the end, he had the strong feeling that Sören would be consumed enough by grief to self-destruct. That inner fire that had kept him alive this long always seemed to be in danger of either snuffing out entirely or burning him to death, or perhaps a combination of the two. If Sören was aching to be touched, pleased, in the years prior, as Dooku became frail? Once he was alone and grieving, it would make Sören's "party animal" phase of 2015 look tame, the explosion before his star went dark.  
  
Dooku had a feeling Dagnýr sensed this also, and was offering Sören a more active role in his future children's lives as a way of keeping Sören alive, rather like how taking in Snúdur had given Sören something to live for. But would it be enough?  
  
It  _hurt_  to think about these things. It was a tragedy.  
  
Dooku sighed, leaning against the sink counter when the dishes were done. He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was a rather morbid way to start the day, thinking about all of this again, and it was a bad time to revisit this particular rabbit hole - Sören might be in a good mood now, like a rainbow after a storm, but how long would it last before the next storm rolled in... and he was absolutely sure there would be at least one more, before Vigdís and Páll returned in August.  
  
Dooku prepared what he'd need for the stroll he was planning on - his cell phone just in case, a couple bottles of water - and stepped out. He wore khakis and a light grey button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a leather travel satchel slung over one shoulder, against his hip. He added a grey "boonie hat" he'd gotten for protection from the sun, even though there wasn't much sun to be had at the moment.  
  
Just as he was leaving, going down the front path, he caught sight of Alejandro walking Auli, coming up the street towards him.  
  
_Well, this is awkward._  He could pretend he didn't see them, go inside and wait it out, he could keep moving and hope Alejandro wasn't taking the same path, or he could take the direct approach.  
  
_I did tell Vigdís and Páll I'd check up on the dog. This is checking up on the dog._  
  
He held out his hand in a wave, and Alejandro held out his left hand, waving back. Auli got excited, barking and wagging his tail, trying to pull Alejandro along to see his friend.  
  
Dooku waited at the front path and when Alejandro and Auli crossed, Dooku began to walk alongside them.  
  
"Good morning," he said brightly.  
  
"Good morning," Alejandro replied in a neutral tone of voice. "You look like you're out for a hike." Alejandro himself was wearing dark jeans and a black sweater with the sleeves rolled up, dark hair cascading to the middle of his back.  
  
"Yes, I had planned on going for a walk today, while my husband is teaching his art classes. I hope you don't mind if I join you."  
  
"Not at all." Alejandro attempted a thin smile.  
  
He was shielding himself - Dooku wondered if it was habitual, or if Alejandro was mildly Force sensitive and doing so deliberately - but past that shielding, Dooku could feel the slight bristle of discomfort, looking at the man who was now married to someone he once loved very much.  
  
_Still loves, present tense._  
  
Alejando was wondering after Sören, and Dooku answered the unspoken  _how is he_. "He was truthfully a bit discomfited when you arrived," Dooku told him, "but he's in better spirits today."  
  
A pause. "That's good." Still a neutral tone.  
  
"How is my little friend here?" Dooku stooped to pet Auli, who licked his hand.  
  
"He's doing well." More silence, and then, "I've found myself attached to him."  
  
"You must be, since I see you with the dog the most often." Dooku smiled. "He's a good dog. Our neighbors have children and he's very gentle with them."  
  
"I haven't had a dog since I was young. I rather missed it, surprisingly." A pause. "You have a nice cat."  
  
"That's Sören's baby, although he's become my baby, too. Sören got him shortly after he moved back to Reykjavik from London."  
  
"I hadn't been aware that he'd left. Van had to fill me in about that, though I imagine there are more details than what he shared."  
  
"Your boyfriend seems like a decent fellow. He was kind to Sören, which I appreciate."  
  
Alejandro finally turned to look at him, meeting his eyes. Dooku never knew grey eyes could actually look  _hot_ , but his were blazing, as if he'd said something offensive. "Van is not my boyfriend," Alejandro said. "I'm single."  
  
"So the two of you..."  
  
"It's not really your business, but I suppose the kids these days would call it 'friends with benefits'. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it's not what I would call a relationship." A pause. "We're certainly not exclusive."  
  
"What about the girl you left Sören for...?"  
  
"I'm not married anymore."  
  
"I see." Dooku felt like he put his foot into it without meaning to; he could feel Alejandro bristling again. "My apologies for bringing it up."  
  
"It's fine." It wasn't fine. "If we're going to be neighbors, we might as well not be strangers, no use hiding from each other and not interacting for the next two months."  
  
"Exactly." Dooku nodded.  
  
"Though I imagine this must be awkward for you as well." Alejandro looked at him again.  
  
"A bit, yes." And not just because this was Sören's ex, and was causing Sören to revisit old painful feelings, which were affecting him, and he had that natural instinct to protect and shield his mate - Alejandro was devastatingly attractive, and Dooku wasn't sure he should be noticing his husband's ex that way, but he was old, not blind. Dooku thought Sören was the most beautiful man in the world, but Alejandro was also exceptionally beautiful - the glorious mane, long dark lashes, thick brows, silver-grey eyes, high cheekbones, clean-shaven, features that were pretty yet masculine the same time. At six-five Dooku was used to being the tallest person in a room at any given time, and both Van and Alejandro were taller than he was. And even clothed, Dooku could tell Alejandro had a sleek but powerful build, like that of a professional athlete or perhaps a soldier.  
  
He carried himself with pride; Dooku knew from Sören that Alejandro was wealthy, though Sören had suspected his family was involved in shady dealings of some kind. But this was the bearing of nobility, something Dooku recognized since he himself came from Romanian counts and they had a similar posture and gait. Dooku knew old money when he saw it, and Alejandro's family was shady perhaps, but Alejandro was still definitely old money.  
  
He had a deep voice, not quite as deep as Dooku's, more of a baritone than a bass. He was soft-spoken, and sounded American with a touch of a Latin accent, which was pleasant to listen to.  
  
His left hand was graceful, and his right hand was badly scarred. Dooku wondered about it, and tried not to stare. Somehow, it didn't detract from his attractiveness.  
  
Alejandro and Sören would have been beautiful to watch together - Dooku remembered that one photo he'd seen of them engaged in foreplay in the Netherlands, both shirtless, Sören sucking the index and middle fingers of Alejandro's left hand as Alejandro's lips grazed his neck, heat in their gaze as they looked at each other... pornographic in its sensuality even though the photo was from the shoulders up. Then there was that painting Sören had done of them making love on the black sand beach of Reynisfjara, Sören riding him... Dooku could only imagine that the two of them had as intense a sex life as he and Sören had, if perhaps not moreso because Alejandro was younger and able to go multiple rounds...  
  
_Why am I thinking about this?_  Dooku felt himself flushing, trying to bat those thoughts out of his mind. But he couldn't help stealing another glance out of the corner of his eye at Alejandro, who looked pensive as he watched the road ahead.  
  
They turned, together, into the rolling hills.  
  
"Where are you headed?" Alejandro asked.  
  
"Do you want company?"  
  
Alejandro shrugged. "I won't tell you no."  
  
"Then wherever you're going."  
  
"I'm walking down to the bay."  
  
That was a bit of a hike, but one Dooku was able to take. He nodded, and they continued walking in the direction of the fjord. The fog was starting to let up. They walked in silence for awhile.  
  
"Awkwardness aside, how do you like it here in Svalbarðseyri?" Dooku asked, still trying to be neighborly.  
  
"I do." Alejandro nodded. "It's peaceful here. The landscape is lovely. The locals are friendly enough." With that, a bit of a wry smile at Dooku. "I appreciate that you're trying to be nice to me. I imagine you must hate me."  
  
Dooku took a moment to consider his response. "It's awkward, but I don't hate you, no." Dooku thought of Sören's vulnerable heart, and what he knew now of the younger man's history, the broken pieces he'd been offered, that Sören had trusted him to be careful with. "There are better people to hate from Sören's past."  
  
"Indeed there are. I assume you know about his upbringing." A flash of anger, still hot even after five years apart.  
  
"I know quite a lot, Alejandro." Dooku looked at him more openly. "You can surely understand why I'd be a bit protective of him. Why I'd want to keep an eye on you."  
  
"I do." And then Alejandro looked at him, sizing him up. "As I'm sure you can understand my own protectiveness, and why I am also keeping an eye on you."  
  
Dooku chuckled. "Is that so."  
  
"You had better be worthy of him."  
  
Dooku's lips quirked. "I try."  _I still feel like I'm being unfair to him._  
  
"I don't hate you either," Alejandro told him. "Envy you... yes. I have many regrets, and I'd be lying if I said that letting Sören go wasn't one of the biggest ones. But above all, I want his happiness. He's had too little of that, which I'm sure you know."  
  
"Indeed." Dooku nodded. "His happiness is my own greatest concern."  
  
"Van brought me back here, against my better judgment, and I didn't just fly back to the States already because I wanted to make very sure Sören is all right. You... should appreciate why I'd have concerns."  
  
Dooku continued to nod. "Very much. We have that in common."  
  
"I can work with that."  
  
"We have something else in common," Dooku said mildly.  
  
Alejandro raised an eyebrow.  
  
"You're not the only person who came to Iceland after it was over, looking for closure." Dooku closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the haunted look on Sören's face when he showed up unannounced at the art studio. Then the feverish, wild sex up against the wall in the cabin, after Dooku had confessed he hadn't been bored, it wasn't truly "irreconcilable differences" of coming from two different worlds, he was afraid of dying and making Sören suffer with him. "I had broken up with Sören, and I came here asking for forgiveness. He granted it. I moved here from London to be with him."  
  
"Why did you break up with him?"  
  
"Do you want the truth?"  
  
"I demand the truth."  
  
Dooku wanted to laugh at that - he was starting to like this man, despite himself - but something in Alejandro's eyes told him not to dare, and he choked the amusement back. "As you know, there is a considerable age difference between Sören and myself. Sören will be thirty-five in November. I will be seventy-one in December. I am in good health, and don't have the problems usually found in men my age, if you catch my drift. But I did wonder how long it would last, and... you know how Sören is. How sensitive he is. He left medical school when the death got to be too much for him. I didn't want to subject him to the end, which will come someday. I also didn't want him to argue with me about it. I felt as if I was doing him a favor, trying to break it off coldly, implying that I was bored, making him hate me. It didn't do either of us a favor. I came here and explained myself. His parents both died young, as you know, and he said he was willing to chance it because he, himself, could go tomorrow."  
  
_I know that all too well,_  Dooku heard at the back of his mind, Alejandro broadcasting for once, not keeping his shield fully locked.  
  
His shield was down just enough that Dooku could feel a surge of pain within him, as if something he'd said in that testimony had called Alejandro out about something, somewhere, somehow. A deep sense of  _shame_  and  _weakness_ ,  _I have lost too much too many times_  and then the shield slammed back up.  
  
Dooku went on, "So here we are. I retired from my practice as a barrister, cashed in my pension, and moved out here, because Sören didn't want to come back to London - I can't blame him, most of his family is here. I'm fortunate that Iceland is such a beautiful country, getting adjusted to life here has been... well... splendid. But even if it was much more difficult, I would follow Sören to the ends of the Earth."  
  
"He... has that effect, yes." Alejandro's eyes looked off into the distance. "He is the very embodiment of passion."  
  
"And because of that... my mistake, and that I showed up here, unannounced, knowing full well I might be unwelcome... I can't quite fault you for doing the same. So we have that in common, as well."  
  
"That's two things."  
  
"That it is."  
  
"Next you're going to tell me Sören subjects you to dad jokes and that makes three things."  
  
Dooku's laughter rang out, and Alejandro smiled, an actual genuine smile that made Dooku's breath catch the same way it did when Sören smiled.  
  
_Stop that. This is your husband's_  ex.  _Stop looking at him like that._  
  
"That is indeed three things," Dooku said. He paused for a moment, and so did Alejandro. Auli sat. Dooku reached into his satchel and pulled out the two bottles of water. He handed one to Alejandro.  
  
" _Obrigado_ ," Alejandro said when he took the water. "...Nicolae?"  
  
Dooku pursed his lips. "I'm on a last-name basis with most people, but I suppose you can call me Nicolae instead of Dooku. My neighbors did."  
  
"That's a bit of a relief." Alejandro's lips quirked around the water bottle.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"Your surname..." Alejandro looked away, a bit sheepish.  
  
"My surname what?"  
  
A small clear of the throat. Alejandro looked down, fighting back a smile. "It means something dirty in Portuguese."  
  
"...what."  
  
" _Do cu_  means 'I do anal' in Portuguese."  
  
Dooku had taken that moment to sip water, and spat it out. He spluttered, shaking with silent laughter. "It does not."  
  
" _It does._  You can look up  _cu_  on the Internet later. It's Portuguese slang for anal or ass. I'm not making this up."  
  
Dooku facepalmed. "I can already see Sören having a field day with this."  
  
Alejandro laughed now, and Dooku could see past the shielding for a moment to know he was thinking of the way Sören laughed, enjoying that. "Yes, yes he would. I'll have to inform him."  
  
"He didn't take my surname, at least."  
  
"I know that much. I did some poking around at his Internet footprint." Alejandro winced. "I must sound like a creepy stalker now."  
  
"To anyone else, perhaps. I was a criminal defense barrister back in London and I know the type. To all accounts, Sören said you never did anything that fits the profile. Which is good for you, because if he was afraid of you, I would have to be ungentlemanly."  
  
They resumed walking. "The bay's not terribly far," Alejandro said.  
  
Dooku nodded. "I can already smell the salt in the air."  
  
The sun was starting to break, sparkling on the deep blue North Atlantic. They stopped, taking in the view of the sunshine through clouds, the water, the lighthouse, the grassy shore.  
  
Alejandro sat, and let Auli run. Dooku also sat down next to him, gingerly.  
  
They just watched the sea together for awhile, quietly. There was a breeze coming in, stirring Alejandro's hair. Dooku felt as if he could see through Sören's eyes for a moment, recalling memories Sören hadn't yet shared, visiting an endless assortment of beaches, with Alejandro looking out to sea like he was doing now.  
  
It felt rude to breech the silence, as if he were intruding on something very private, but Dooku couldn't help himself. "It's another thing we have in common," he said.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"The sea. One of my earliest childhood memories is the beach. I started coming on my own, when I got older, finding a peace there I couldn't find elsewhere. Anywhere I've traveled in the world, I've made it a point to see the ocean while I was there, take a shell or two." A pause. "It's a recurring theme in Sören's work, something that drew me to him."  
  
"Ah."  
  
Dooku took that as a  _I listen and acknowledge, but now be quiet again_. Dooku didn't mind. They enjoyed the sound of the waves, and the jangle of Auli's collar as he excitedly ran around. Eventually Auli ran back to Alejandro, bringing him a stick on the ground. Alejandro threw it, and Auli ran after it. A few rounds of fetch and then Auli just wanted pettings, paws on Alejandro's shoulders, aggressively licking his face, even putting his tongue in the man's nose. Alejandro laughed, petting him. Dooku couldn't help smiling.  
  
"He's a good dog," Dooku said.  
  
Auli bounded over to him and rewarded him for saying that with cleaning his face, paying special attention to his beard. "Yes, Auli, you're a good boy," Dooku said, petting the sheepdog. "A boy with very stinky breath, but a good boy nonetheless."  
  
"I should get him breath-freshening dog treats in town."  
  
"That would be a good idea."  
  
Alejandro smiled at Auli, who came back over to him and flomped down on him. He rubbed the dog's belly. "Yes, you're a good boy," Alejandro said. He continued idly stroking the dog, watching the water.  
  
"What time is it?" Alejandro finally asked.  
  
"A little after one o'clock."  
  
"Hm. What time is Sören getting off work?"  
  
"Four."  
  
"Do you want to have lunch with me?"  
  
"I'd like that, thank you."  
  
"All right. We'll walk back and we can take my Jaguar into town."  
  
"It's a nice car. I had a Jaguar when I lived in London." Dooku gave a soft sigh; one of the few things he missed, having a more practical jeep for getting around now, necessary in the Icelandic winter. "Looked a lot like your rental, actually."  
  
"I had a car that looked a lot like that rental when I lived in Reykjavik. But I'm not surprised somehow we have, er, similar tastes."  
  
Dooku's lips quirked. "That would be one way of putting it, yes."  
  
They got up, and walked back into the village in silence, that was less awkward than before. When they got to the cottage, Alejandro let Auli in, and then after a moment gestured for Dooku to come inside.  
  
Van was there, writing something in a leather-bound journal at the kitchen table. He looked up when he saw Dooku. "Hello," he said pleasantly.  
  
" _Dobryj dyen’_ ," Dooku said.  
  
Van raised his eyebrows. " _Akh, vy govorite po-russki?_ "  
  
" _Nemnogo. Ya govoryu na rumynskom._ " Dooku only knew a small amount of Russian, mostly from ex-clients of his in London; he was fluent in Romanian, his family's language. But he was familiar with the accent, and felt like it would be polite to greet Van in Russian. It was also a thinly veiled warning -  _"my father was a government official",_  Van had said, and this association with Alejandro whose South American family Sören had thought was involved in criminal activity...  _well, a sort of I know you're up to something poke._  His barrister senses were engaged. It wasn't enough where he was concerned for Sören's safety - if anything, he got the distinct sense if he were harming Sören in any way, they would make him disappear immediately - but it was something to watch.  
  
"Didn't mean to disturb you," Dooku said, watching Van look more intensely at his notes.  
  
"You're fine."  
  
"Aren't you on holiday?"  
  
"I'm always working."  
  
"Ah... you never did tell me what it is you do."  
  
Van smiled. "I run a cleaning service."  
  
"I am going into town," Alejandro informed Van. "Do you need anything?"  
  
"Not at the moment, no."  
  
Alejandro nodded curtly. "May I get you something before we head out?" he asked Dooku. "Coffee, tea...?"  
  
"I'll wait till we're going wherever it is we're going," Dooku said.  
  
Van gave them a look that Dooku registered as mild amusement; Alejandro shot back a glare, making Dooku wonder what that was about, and then they were off to the Jaguar.  
  
They decided on Serrano, the Mexican restaurant in Akureyri. Dooku felt a bit odd about coming here with Alejandro since it was a place that had a lot of history for him and Sören - Sören had taken him here the night they'd made love for the first time, and they'd gone there for Valentine's Day, when they opened a new chapter in their relationship by introducing bondage and discipline, something they occasionally did for fun. Being here with Alejandro wasn't a date, but it still felt strangely intimate.  
  
Dooku took off his hat at the restaurant, and decided he could just keep it off - it was only partly sunny today. They ate most of their meal in silence and Alejandro finally said, "I'm terrible at small talk, sorry."  
  
"So am I," Dooku said.  
  
"Another thing in common."  
  
"Yes." Dooku nodded. "At least Sören understands this."  
  
"It was one of the things I appreciated about him," Alejandro said. "A lot of people talk to hear the sound of their own voice, and don't really have anything to say. It isn't that Sören and I never talked, but we could  _rest_ together, if that makes sense. It was easy to  _just be_  around him."  
  
"It is." Dooku nodded.  
  
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't be..."  
  
"It's fine." Dooku let out a small sigh. "If our positions were reversed, I'd most likely be... where you are."  
  
"You can't just love someone like that... how he is... and switch it off."  
  
"No, you cannot. I would walk through fire for him."  
  
Their eyes met, and Alejandro quickly looked down at his food. Dooku got the sense past the shield that Alejandro had a very similar conversation with someone a long time ago, about someone else, and Dooku reminded Alejandro of the person he was having that conversation with and there was an eerie feeling of deja vu.  
  
The shield slammed shut again.  
  
Once in the Jaguar, Alejandro said, "Do you mind coming with me to the store? I need to get a few odds and ends."  
  
"I don't."  
  
"Do you mind if I put on music?"  
  
Dooku didn't know what he was expecting, but he was pleasantly surprised by the classical music. "Rachmaninoff," Dooku recognized.  
  
" _Yes._ "  
  
They listened together, keeping quiet. Alejandro's eyes were on the road, but he also seemed like he was elsewhere, an intensity burning within him, a storm matching the stormy piano, as if he were playing it with his mind, expressing the thunder of turmoil and regret.  
  
_I can see why Sören fancied him._  It was downright embarrassing now, his reaction to this man.  
  
Dooku decided he'd also get a few things at the store. It seemed somewhat surreal, buying groceries, toiletries, and pet food with his husband's ex... who he seemed to have a bit in common with. They loaded up the car and there was more classical music on the way back. Dooku was almost disappointed when they turned in to their street.  
  
Alejandro pulled over in front of Dooku's cabin, and though Dooku didn't need any help with the bags, Alejandro still gave him a hand, being polite. They lingered at the doorstep.  
  
"Do you want to come in?" Dooku asked.  
  
"Not this time, I have perishables to put away, but perhaps next time."  
  
"Oh." Dooku could feel his face registering the surprise. "I... wouldn't mind accompanying you on another walk."  
  
"Good. I didn't think I'd be saying this, but you're not bad company."  
  
"Nor you." Dooku didn't know why he was adding this part, even though it was the truth. "I don't have a lot of friends."  
  
"I also tend to keep to myself, yes. ...Another thing we have in common."  
  
"Well, thank you for..." Dooku didn't quite know what to call it, he was hesitant about calling it "friendship" just yet - this was still awkward and surreal - and he sensed the same hesitancy in Alejandro. He found his words, though. "Meeting me on common ground."  
  
"Same to you. Have a good rest of the evening. Tell Sören I said hello, please." A mischievous smile. "Tell Sören what I said about your last name."  
  
Dooku laughed, shaking his head, and Alejandro waved. Dooku watched him walk off.   
  
_He has a nice arse._  
  
_No, stop that._  
  
Dooku's face was on fire, enough that he ran the sink and splashed cold water on his face when he got in.


	14. Temptation In The Garden

**Temptation In The Garden**

 

 

Sören had felt out of his league in Alejandro's and Dooku's Jaguars, but a Bentley... that was something else entirely. He felt almost like he should take his Docs off before he climbed in, but Van wasn't asking him to do that.  
  
"You can pick wherever it is we're going," Van told him, getting behind the driver's wheel. "I have GPS."  
  
Sören had already decided. "The Botanical Garden in Akureyri is beautiful this time of year."  
  
They spent awhile walking around, quietly admiring the beauty of the blooming flowers underneath the bright sunshine that had finally decided to come out, as promised by the weather forecast, after days of rain and fog. The garden was an explosion of color, and one of the reasons why Sören ached for his hometown in the years he'd been away. There was a real peace here... as well as awe, the liminality of the place, as if it were existing both here and in another realm at the same time. Being here, Sören could better appreciate why his ancestors believed in superstition like elves - this was the sort of garden one would expect an elven palace to have.  
  
Sören liked pointing out the native species to Van. He also liked pointing out the subtleties in shading on the same species, or even the little moments that gave him wonder. "Look at them swaying in the breeze," Sören said in a hushed tone of voice. "It's like they're dancing."  
  
There was a cafe at the garden, serving coffee, pastries, and light lunches. They had lunch there, and Sören had a biscotti, munching it thoughtfully as he looked out at the view... and kept stealing glances at Van, who looked like he was made for this kind of setting.  
  
They hadn't talked much before now, but Sören gestured to the satchel he'd brought with him, breaking the ice. "I'd like to sit for awhile in the garden and draw, if that's OK," he said.  
  
"It is." Van nodded. "I remember the last time we saw each other, in Reykjavik, you had mentioned being an artist who couldn't make art anymore. It's good that you've gotten back into it."  
  
"I'm surprised you remember that."  
  
"I remember everything about that night, beauty." His voice was a caress.  
  
Sören felt a shiver down his spine - he did, too. His thoughts flashed back to the way Van took care of him that night, massaging him, teasing him, making him come like he hadn't come since Alejandro. It had been a shame they'd only had four hours, Sören would have wanted to return the favor.  
  
_Fuck, he's hot._  
  
Sören felt a pang of guilt for having these thoughts. He was married to Dooku - it wasn't like he was replacing one lust for another, he had no intention of leaving his husband for anyone, but he also despised cheating, having been cheated on before. And Van was living with Alejandro, up the street, which implied some kind of involvement. Sören may have been angry at Alejandro still, but he wasn't going to fuck up their relationship.  
  
Sören nervously sipped his coffee, trying to knock the lewd thoughts out of his head, but they kept playing, and giving way to other delicious thoughts - what it would be like to make love with Van in the garden, what it would be like to  _bareback_  with him...  
  
_Fuck._  
  
Sören's face burned, and it wasn't from the heat of the coffee.  
  
Van was watching him. "Do you have any samples of your work? I told you once I am a connoisseur of rare and precious objects... I like original art, and patroning artists when I can."  
  
"I have some sketches, but..." Sören pulled out his sketchpad and handed it over. "I have a gallery on deviantART, and I also have paintings and pottery on display at Logifugl Listaskóli, in town." He swallowed hard, feeling shy. People seemed to like his art, but he was haunted by his ex Justin's words.  _You're not that fucking great._  It had kept him from showing anywhere for over a year, though he was at least still making art in that period of time, making himself create even when he was depressed.

Perhaps,  _especially_  when, needing to keep that fire burning somehow.  
  
"I'd like to see them." Van was looking at the sketches with interest. "If these are 'mere' works in progress, the finished products must be masterpieces. There is already a great deal of depth and..." He seemed to be searching for the right word for it. "Spirit that comes through." He smiled at a sketch of Snúdur wearing a crown and a collar with an eight-spoked star, playing with three large gems like they were cat toys. "That's amazing."  
  
Sören also smiled. "I love my cat, what can I say. Nothing's too good for him."  
  
"That was evident at the cabin. Even when you speak of him, it lights up your entire face." Their eyes met. "You burn, so brightly."  
  
Sören was burning even more now, feeling fluttery and giddy, his head spinning. He felt himself biting his lower lip, crinkling his nose.  
  
Van handed him back the sketch pad.  
  
"We could go to the studio after...?"  
  
"Another time," Van said. "I can only be out for a couple more hours, I told Alejandro I would look after Auli while he takes a drive."  
  
"To the ocean...?"  
  
"You do indeed know him." Van took a sip of wine.  
  
"Jæja, I do." Sören nodded solemnly. "If you don't mind me asking, how long have you two been together...?"  
  
"We're not 'together.'" Van made air quotes. He leaned back in his chair, swirling wine around in his glass. "Alejandro and I go back a long time, he's one of my oldest friends."  
  
"Funny, because he never mentioned you, and as far as I know he didn't visit you in that five-year period we were living together."  
  
"There is a lot Alejandro keeps to himself, as no doubt you know," Van said, "and there are reasons why he'd want to keep details private, pertaining to our families. And yes, it's true I didn't see him much during that period of time. But the connection is still there. That said, that is all it is. We're not involved as you would understand a relationship to be. We've been intimate, if you're wondering, but never exclusive - he is free to see other people, as am I - and I can vouch that he was exclusive with you when you were together in Reykjavik."  
  
_So that's one piece of guilt removed. But then there's Nico._  "I see."  
  
"Mmm." Van sipped his wine. He gestured to the biscotti. "How is that?"  
  
"It's quite good. Would you like to try a piece?"  
  
"I would." Van leaned forward, and Sören expected him to take one of the cookies off the plate, but instead he opened his mouth, like Sören's cat did when he wanted to be hand-fed a treat.  
  
Sören's heart was racing now, his hands shaking a little as he brought a biscotti to Van's mouth. He nibbled the end of it, and continued to feed from Sören's fingers, giving a playful lick at the end.  
  
_I'm going to die._  Sören was sporting a semi now under the table.  
  
Van gave a little mischievous smile as he finished off his wine. "Shall we go back to the garden?"  
  
They sat together, and then Sören asked, "Can you do me a favor and sit across from me?"  
  
Van raised an eyebrow.  
  
_Your cologne and your... fucking... pheromones... or whatever it is... and the proximity of you._  But also, there were more practical reasons. "Would you mind if I drew you?"  
  
"I'd be honored."  
  
Van stretched out and propped himself up on one elbow.  
  
Sören began to sketch him, languid among the flowers. He had Van get into two other poses, so he could decide between them when he was ready to turn the sketch into a painting. More than usual, there was a lot of detail going into it - just the flood of Van's hair was taking time - and Sören really wanted to capture all of the different varieties of flowers.  
  
He still wasn't done when Van looked at his Rolex and said, "We have to get back. I'm very sorry."  
  
"It's all right," Sören said. "Do you want to see what I've got so far? I've at least got something I can work with, and I can flesh it out when it's on canvas."  
  
"Surprise me," Van said.  
  
They got in the Bentley. "I enjoyed this very much," Van said as they drove back.  
  
"You sure? You weren't bored, with me sketching?"  
  
"Not at all." Van took a deep breath. "It was very soothing, to just relax there, soak up the beauty of the place..." He took Sören's chin in his hand, tilted Sören's face to his, and gave it a little stroke. "The beauty of you, creating your beautiful inner visions."  
  
Sören bit his lower lip again. "Awww..." He blushed. " _Þakka þér kærlega._ "  
  
" _Þú ert velkominn, fegurð mín._ "  
  
"You flatter me."  
  
"I don't flatter. I speak the truth."  
  
Sören was getting gooseflesh again, the surge of heat and chills.  _Fuck, I want him._  
  
They lingered at Sören's cabin. "I'd like to do this again," Van said.  
  
"I work next weekend, but I have Friday off. However, my Friday plans are contingent on what my husband is doing."  
  
"I understand."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. "Why don't you come to the studio sometime this week? You could attend a couple classes for free, if you wanted to. I have pastels and ceramics on Thursday, just... wear something you don't care about getting dirty, or be prepared to wear an apron."  
  
Van chuckled. "That sounds like a plan, Sören."  
  
Sören shivered, loving the way Van said his name.  _I want to make him scream my name._  
  
"As far as the garden... we could make a date for next week. There's other places I could take you in Akureyri, too. You probably wouldn't be interested in seeing the Christmas stuff -" Van seemed too elegant for that, though Sören  _had_  taken Dooku there. "But there's other things to see and do. There's also more natural places, like the Dimmuborgir, the Goðafoss, which aren't too bad of a drive."  
  
"I'd say yes to all of that. We have the summer. We can talk more about what to do next, when I come by the studio on Thursday."  
  
"OK." Sören smiled. He reached out to pat him, which was something he did with people he was fond of without thinking about it, but when he touched Van there was that spark, and he felt himself hardening again. He needed to get out of the Bentley before he did something he would regret later. "Maybe you can come for dinner sometime this week too, já?"  
  
"Yes. Let me know, that would be lovely." Van squeezed Sören's hand, then brought it to his lips and kissed it. "Have a good rest of the day, beauty."  
  
"You too." Sören waved on his way out of the car. When he got to the door of the cabin, he was shaking.  
  
He was also hard.  
  
_Dammit._  Sören took a deep breath as he walked in.  _Brain, can we not do this. I'm married. I'm not cheating on my husband._  
  
He needed a drink. He poured himself a shot of Brennivín, nursing it as he stroked Snúdur on his lap and played Stardew Valley, trying to make his hard-on go down by distracting himself. It only halfway worked, his thoughts kept going back to that night they'd shared, and the very obvious chemistry they still had.  
  
Dooku got in from his afternoon bike ride after Sören had been home for close to an hour. He was wearing leather pants to ride. Sören took one look at him and the fever started again.  
  
Without saying a word, he got up from the couch, grabbed Dooku, kissed him hard, and marched him over to the bed. Dooku laughed between kisses as Sören fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, the button and zipper of his pants, not able to undress him fast enough.  
  
"Someone's happy to see me -"  
  
The words were broken with another hungry kiss, almost savage in its need. "I want you fucking  _now_ ," Sören growled, nibbling Dooku's neck as he pushed the older man back on the bed.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Three hours later, they were spent. Dooku was dazed after three orgasms - Sören had four - and Sören drifted in and out, napping as he sometimes did after sex. He woke fully to the sound of his stomach growling, and that made Dooku more alert as well.  
  
"What do you want to do for dinner?" Dooku asked.  
  
"You want to go into town? Take the night off from cooking?"  
  
They went to Serrano. Dooku ordered something different than his usual, which surprised Sören. "You always get the enchiladas," he said.  
  
Dooku looked down. "I had them when I was here yesterday."  
  
"You went to Serrano yesterday?"  
  
Dooku looked off to the side. "Yes. Alejandro and I ended up hiking together, and we had a bite to eat."  
  
Sören got very quiet. "I see."  
  
"I would have told you yesterday, but you were drawing and I didn't want to disturb you."  
  
"That's OK." Sören patted his hand. "So, um... how did that go? I imagine it was awkward."  _It's awkward for me too, my husband and my ex suddenly hanging out?_  But Sören also knew neither of them had much in the way of friends, and they had quite a lot in common. If ever two people seemed somehow  _destined_  to be friends, it was the two of them.  
  
"It was, but it was also surprisingly pleasant." Dooku sipped his drink. "He seems to think he needs to keep an eye on me, to make sure I don't hurt you."  
  
Sören snorted. "How chivalrous of him."  
  
"I can't blame him, really. He was very..." Dooku paused. "Adamant, I suppose you could say. He still cares for you a great deal."  
  
_If he cared that much, he shouldn't have left in the first place. Fucker._  Sören perked up when their food arrived, and tore into a burrito.  
  
"He also told me to tell you he said hello."  
  
"Hm." Sören chewed his burrito.  
  
Dooku's lips quirked and he rolled his eyes. "He also told me to tell you something he thought you'd appreciate. It's about my surname, actually."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Apparently it means something vulgar in Portuguese."  
  
" _Really._ "  
  
" _Do cu_ , do and the word c-u, means 'I do anal' in Portuguese. I looked it up on the Google, he was indeed not lying."  
  
Sören quickly put his burrito down, trying not to spray food. He sipped his drink, shaking with silent laughter, his eyes tearing up. "Oh my fucking god."  
  
"Yes. Such... information. One learns new things every day, I suppose."  
  
" _God._ "  _He wanted to make me laugh. He knows how I am, he knows laughter is one of the ways I cope._  Sören felt himself softening a little towards Alejandro, and he hated that.  _No, I do not want to stop being angry with him. He needs to cut that shit out._  
  
"So, how was your outing with Van?"  
  
"It was nice. We went to the Botanical Garden. I sketched."  _I needed to eat you alive when you walked in the door._  
  
"We could do worse for neighbors."  
  
"We could." Sören said what he was thinking to himself earlier. "It'd be nice to see you make a friend."  
  
"I could say the same about you."  
  
Sören took Dooku's hands and kissed them. "I really appreciate you, you know, not being... well... weird about any of this."  
  
"Someone has to be a mature, reasonable adult around here."  
  
"Are you implying I'm not an adult?" Sören stuck his tongue out, and then started blowing bubbles in his drink.  
  
"Why do I get the sense that if our ages were reversed and you were the elder of the two of us, I'd still be the serious, mature adult?"  
  
"Because you're a fucking dork?" Sören blew a raspberry.  
  
Dooku laughed, rolling his eyes. "You know, sometimes we act like siblings as much as we act like lovers."  
  
"Do not."  
  
"Do too."  
  
"Do not."  
  
"Do too."  
  
"Do not."  
  
"Do too."  
  
" _Do cu_?" Sören couldn't resist, and Dooku playfully kicked him under the table, before playing footsie with him.  
  
"Brat," Dooku said, affectionately.  
  
"I'm your brat."  
  
"Yes, you are."  
  
On the drive back, Sören leaned on Dooku, nuzzling him. It started to rain again, and there was something very cozy about driving with him in the rain, snuggled against him. Dooku felt it too, and took a detour to the bay so they could just look at the water for awhile, and the rain coming down, cuddling, enjoying the peace.  
  
_I would not trade moments like this for all the world,_  Sören thought to himself, kissing the tip of Dooku's nose.  
  
When they got back to the cabin, Sören splashed in the puddles like a big kid, making Dooku laugh and roll his eyes. Then Dooku said, "Come here, you." He hugged Sören from behind, and Sören reached up to touch Dooku's arms, loving the way that felt, safe and sweet.  
  
They were lost in each other for a moment, and then they heard the sound of a chain jangling, an excited bark. Sören opened his eyes and saw Alejandro walking past with Auli; Dooku was still holding him from behind, rocking him a little.  
  
"Hello there," Dooku called out.  
  
"Good evening," Alejandro said.  
  
Dooku and Sören looked at each other. "Do you want to come in for a moment?"  
  
"Not tonight. It's a bit damp out, the dog needs to go in. Thank you for the offer, though." Alejandro raised his hand in a wave and resumed walking.  
  
Sören and Dooku got in, and shared a soft, gentle kiss. "I'll put on tea," Dooku said.  
  
"OK. I think I'm gonna sketch for a bit, finish what I started earlier."  
  
"All right. I'll try to work on my chapter."  
  
  
_  
  
  
That dog had to walk through every single puddle, and shake it off on him. Maglor still liked his companionship.  
  
Especially now. Seeing Dooku and Sören standing there, holding each other like that, hurt not just because of what he'd lost - Sören had moved on with his life, while he had not - but it was a painful reminder of what he'd lost well before that. He had seen Fingolfin and Fëanor in that very same position countless times, a quiet moment of affection.  
  
He missed them both so much it  _hurt._  He remembered sharing their bed, making love with them together and separately. The Valar had deemed it sin, had punished them for it - Eru knew he was still being punished, now - but if it was wrong, he didn't want to be right. It had been  _beautiful_. There was no sweeter Song, than what the three of them had made together.   
  
And for an all-too-brief moment in time, he'd had something like that with Sören, who burned so much like his father did, but was almost more lovable, in his own silly, playful, innocent-but-naughty, kind way, as if his father had gone from a large predatory cat to a fluffy kitten.  
  
" _Fuck_ ," Maglor said to himself, not much for the harder edges of English swearing even after all this time among Men, but there was no other word to describe that cascading fall of  _loss_ , everything fallen away from him like a waterfall into the sea, inexorable.  
  
He went to his bedroom to change when he got in, and Auli trotted after him, continuing to shake wet fur, giving him another shower. "Dammit, Auli," he said. When he had pajamas on, he threw a towel over the dog, wrapped him up, and scooped him up, holding the bundled-up dog on his lap, rubbing the towel to try to dry him off a little. Auli kept licking his face.  
  
"At least there's you," he said.  _I should really get a dog. Of course, he'll die, eventually._  
  
Sometimes there seemed to be no point to going on. He'd kept going this long because he was the only one left of his family, keeping them alive through himself.  _Keeping their place in the Music alive._  And if he died of his own hand, cast to the Void,  _they won_. He would not give the Valar that victory. He would not give the Valar what remained of his father's fire.  
  
_Memories and spite. That is all I have. That is all I deserve._  
  
Auli whined, and put his tongue up Maglor's nose as if to say  _no, you deserve more._  
  
Maglor flopped back on the bed, laying on his back, staring at the ceiling, feeling like an angsty young ellon again. Auli hopped down and ran out, leaving the towel on the floor. The stereo turned on, playing Depeche Mode.  
  
_I look to you  
How you carry on  
When all hope is gone  
Can't you see  
  
Your optimistic eyes  
Seem like paradise  
To someone like  
Me  
  
I want to take you  
In my arms  
Forgetting all I couldn't do today  
  
Black celebration  
Black celebration  
Tonight  
  
To celebrate the fact  
That we've seen the back  
Of another black day  
  
I look to you  
And your strong belief  
Me, I want relief  
Tonight  
  
Consolation  
I want so much  
Want to feel your touch  
Tonight  
  
Take me in your arms  
Forgetting all you couldn't do today_  
  
Maglor covered his face with his hands.  _Ai, Sören._  
  
Auli hopped back up on the bed, dropping a toy bird on him, as if to say  _you should make music, it might help_. Then Auli lay on him, licking his face some more; Maglor stroked the dog, ruffling his fur.  
  
"You're a good dog." Maglor gave the dog's snout a little kiss, and the top of his head, and continued to pet the dog, thinking of Huan and happier days with his family... and the secret dream he could never have, being with Sören again, a life with his cat, a dog like this one.  
  
Thunder rolled outside. Lightning flashed a few seconds later. It mirrored the storm raging inside him, the anger of how  _unfair_  this all was.  _Have I not been punished enough?_  
  
Vanimórë was at his door, wearing a loose silk robe and nothing underneath. For a moment they just looked at each other. Then Auli got up again and wandered off. Vanimórë came in, uninvited - but not uninvited, all the same. He knelt before Maglor, and Maglor did not protest when Vanimórë took him into his mouth. Awhile later, his cry of release rang out with the thunder, shaking and gasping for breath as lightning flashed.  
  
Vanimórë rose, and climbed over Maglor, his robe on the floor now. "I will ride this storm with thee," he said, before claiming the sweet singer's mouth with a kiss.


	15. Temperature Rising

**Temperature Rising**

 

 

On Monday afternoon, while Sören was in town at the studio, Dooku also took a trip into Akureyri, to do laundry at the local laundromat. When he arrived there, wheeling in a hand truck with three laundry baskets, he saw Alejandro sitting with a book, waiting for his wash to be done.  
  
"Hello," Dooku said.  
  
"Oh, hi there." Alejandro looked up from his book,  _Wizard And Glass_  by Stephen King.  
  
Dooku gestured. "I'm also reading The Dark Tower series at the moment."  
  
A small smile. "Another thing we have in common."  
  
"Yes. This is getting a bit odd now. If I were a superstitious man, I'd say it was as if we were fated to meet." There was more truth to that statement than Dooku would acknowledge to a near-stranger - his life experience as a Force-sensitive had taught him that very few coincidences in his life were actually coincidences.  _Why_  his path had crossed with this man's, though, he still hadn't figured out yet.  
  
Alejandro reached for the iced coffee next to him. Dooku began loading the first washing machine, with whites, not that he or Sören had much white clothing in their respective wardrobes. "Is this your first read-through of the series?" Dooku asked as he put in clothes.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"This is my second read-through," Dooku said. "I'm finding little details I missed the first time."  
  
"And there are so many details. King built quite a world."  
  
"He did."  
  
"I'm hooked. I've been binge-reading since I arrived here. Roland Deschain - the last of his kind, the quest to find the Dark Tower, wandering the Earth but a version of it that isn't his own, his original  _ka-tet_  dying off... he's a compelling character," Alejandro said.  
  
"My favorite is Susannah. The passion for civil rights... deep trust issues... melting to Eddie's care."  
  
"Yes, Eddie is... rather like Sören, isn't he."  
  
"Like him, and a bit of Patrick Danville, but you've not gotten there yet so I won't spoil it."  
  
"I read  _Insomnia_... that's the kid who draws, yes?"  
  
" _Yes._ " Dooku loaded dark clothing into a second washing machine. He had bedding in another basket. "Sören's art is very special."  
  
"It is. He's got a gift." Alejandro gave a small frown, and through Alejandro's shielding, Dooku felt the surge of pain, as if bringing up Sören's art touched him on the raw.  
  
Feeling self-conscious, not wanting to make the man uncomfortable, Dooku continued to load the machine in silence, and then started on the bedding. A buzzer went off, and Alejandro put his book down, got up, and went to the washing machines. Dooku kept stealing glances at him as he transferred his wash to the dryers - the sleek figure, the graceful way he moved, the flow of his long dark hair like water...  _that arse._  
  
Even in a T-shirt and jeans, Alejandro was more attractive than he had a right to be. Dooku once again thought of Alejandro and Sören together, finding the sight aesthetically pleasing,  _arousing_. They were the two most beautiful men Dooku had ever laid eyes on; Van was also quite beautiful.  
  
Dooku felt increased self-consciousness, like he was too old for this. The reminder that he would fade, in however many years, Sören would be a relatively young widower, with much of his life still ahead of him.  
  
"Are you all right?" Alejandro's soft voice broke the silence.  
  
Dooku managed a small, polite, fake smile. "I'm fine."  
  
"You seem troubled." A little nervous laugh. "I know that this is still awkward, being around your husband's ex..."  
  
"It is still awkward, yes, but life is always full of strange things. Or at least my life has been." Dooku straightened his shoulders. "Sören thinks it would be nice if I made a friend." His eyes met Alejandro's.  
  
"So he doesn't hate me."  
  
"I'm not sure what you could call all of those feelings, but he does not wish you bodily harm." A pause. "I can't say the same for his family."  
  
Alejandro chuckled. "I can only imagine that if he told his siblings I showed up here, he had to tell them not to fly in and get in line to beat me up."  
  
"Margrét in particular, yes."  
  
"How is she?"  
  
"Quite well. She is getting married in August."  
  
"I'm glad she's happy. I always liked her, even if I found her music difficult to listen to."  
  
"Calling that noise 'music' is a bit generous."  
  
Alejandro laughed out loud at that. Dooku gave a genuine smile now, feeling like he'd achieved something, cutting through the dark storm clouds to let the silver light through. And oh, the way his face lit up. Dooku didn't think he could get any more beautiful, but he did...  
  
_Stop that._  
  
"I know you have awhile to finish your laundry," Alejandro said, looking at the overhead clock and then back at Dooku, "and I'll have to run home when this is finished, but... when you're done, would you like to accompany me to the park? Auli needs a good run, and I have a portable mp3 player in my car. We can sit, listen to real music, discuss The Dark Tower."  
  
"I'd like that, thank you."  
  
"Let me give you my cell."  
  
  
_  
  
"All right, folks, that's it for today!" Sören was always reluctant to end his classes, especially the last class of the day, not wanting the intoxicating energy of multiple people creating in one space at one time to be over just yet. It was a joy to watch, people discovering they could make something beautiful - that there was beauty inside them.  _You are large, you contain multitudes,_  Sören was fond of telling his students,  _and art is the act of bringing them to life._  
  
As people started to get up, he cleared his throat, almost forgetting. "Remember that I have the ballot box on a table on the way out, taking a vote on whether or not we should start offering music classes here as well. Your vote is important! I'll be tallying the vote on Thursday."  
  
Sören still didn't like the idea of hiring another person at  _his_  studio, and having to change the way things were done - creating a schedule, putting it on the website - but he  _did_  like making his students happy. The process of getting a music teacher was a set of minor inconveniences apart from having to find one and pay them, and as far as sharing his space... well, he'd adjust, sooner or later.  
  
Sören's thoughts went back to the conversation he and Dooku had last night.  
  
_"It'd be nice to see you make a friend."  
  
"I could say the same about you."_  
  
"Jæja," Sören said to himself, starting the cleanup, putting paints away. He was good at things like being the teacher, the coach, but letting people in past an arm's length was hard for him. Always had been. Apart from his family, and Frankie, and Dooku, everyone he'd gotten close to had hurt him in some way. He was afraid of whoever the future music teacher would be possibly not liking him, but even more than that, he was afraid of liking and being liked, making a friend, getting close, getting hurt.  
  
Van was becoming a friend, at least. He thought of the lovely face, the gorgeous mane of hair, and smiled. He didn't know Van well, but there was that instant feeling of  _knowing_  him just the same. He felt safe with Van.  
  
Safe enough for it to be dangerous. He was getting flustered again. He definitely had a crush, like he was a teenage boy all over again, except he was very much an adult now, and thinking very adult things.  
  
_Get a hold of yourself. You're married. What about Nico?_  
  
It didn't change how he felt about Dooku. Van wasn't replacing Dooku. The problem was, he wanted them both.  
  
_Stop it._  
  
Sören drove home, and when he came back, Dooku wasn't there. He wasn't too worried, as Dooku had said he would be going into town to do laundry. But Dooku's jeep was there, so Sören wondered if he went for a walk.  
  
Dooku arrived about a half-hour later, when Sören was working on his sketch of Van, wanting to get it just right before he started replicating it with paint on a canvas. Alejandro was with him.  
  
"Is it all right if he comes in for a few minutes for tea?" Dooku asked.  
  
"I suppose."  
  
Alejandro sat down across from Sören, and Snúdur came right over to the guest, sniffing him and then climbing on his lap. As Dooku waited for the water to boil, he went to Sören and stole a look at the sketchpad. "That is going to be one of your finest works, when you start painting it," he said. "I can't wait to see what you do with it."  
  
Sören bit his lower lip and crinkled his nose, blushing a little, pleased by the praise. " _Takk._ "  
  
"May I see?" Alejandro asked.  
  
Sören looked up. He thought about saying no, but that didn't make any sense. He passed over the sketchpad. Alejandro spent a few minutes quietly studying it; Van was distinctive-looking enough, with the full, generous mouth and the shape of his face, the flood of hair, for it to be obvious who the subject was.  
  
"You always do such wonderful work," Alejandro said, his voice hushed, reverent. "So much detail in the flowers." He passed the sketchpad back to Sören, a haunted look in his grey eyes.  
  
"There will likely be more details that don't make their way into the sketch, once the canvas is on the easel and the paintbrush is in my hand," Sören said. "It starts to take on a life of its own when the colors go into it."  
  
"I remember." A soft sigh.  
  
"I know you do." Sören also sighed. He changed the subject. "So, did the two of you go on another walk?"  
  
"We ran into each other at the laundromat, and Alejandro invited me to go with him to the park so Auli could run," Dooku said. "We listened to Puccini on his portable speakers and talked about The Dark Tower."  
  
"Of course you did." It was still unnerving to Sören that his husband and ex had so much in common, like they were cut from the same cloth, and this hadn't been something he'd sought out intentionally - clearly, though, he had a type.  
  
"I enjoyed myself," Alejandro said. "You're good company."  
  
"So are you," Dooku said.  
  
"Now that you have my cell and I have yours... if I'm taking Auli for a walk, or to the park, would you like me to give you a call so you can join me if you're available?"  
  
"That would be nice." Dooku's eyes met Sören's. "If it won't bother you, that is."  
  
Sören pursed his lips. "Why would it bother me? You're allowed to have friends."  
  
"Just considering the past history..."  
  
Sören shrugged. "It would be one thing if he had been abusive to me, or otherwise unkind, but no, that was never the case." Sören's eyes met Alejandro's, then. "You were always good to me, to the end."  _You have no idea how much I missed you. And what I went through, after._  Sören looked back at Dooku. "So já, it's all right. People need friends, you both are loners with a lot in common, it's natural you'd be kindred spirits."  
  
Just the same, he was glad when Alejandro had his tea and left, not wanting to keep Auli tied up outside for too long. Seeing Alejandro be kind to his husband, and being reminded of Alejandro's familiarity with his art - the way they had inspired each other, partners in every sense of the word... it was making it harder to stay angry with him.  
  
And he wasn't ready to put that anger completely aside. Not yet. It was still too soon.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Tuesday and Wednesday passed uneventfully - Dooku went for walks with Alejandro, and when Sören wasn't at work, he continued his sketch of Van.  
  
Thinking a lot about him. That night they'd shared, years back, and how much Sören liked spending time with him on Sunday. Van was wearing a silk robe in the sketch, which was not what he had been wearing at the Botanical Garden on Sunday, and Sören couldn't resist making it loose, teasing at the nakedness underneath...  
  
_...an invitation._  
  
Sören's thoughts kept wandering into what it would be like to be intimate with him again. He kept these as tightly shielded as he could, not wanting to upset Dooku, not wanting Dooku to feel inadequate - which he most certainly was not, the spike in Sören's libido meant he was also fantasizing more about his husband as well, admiring him more, hungrier for sex with him.  
  
On Wednesday night, Van dropped by briefly to confirm that he'd be going with Sören to the studio on Thursday to attend the pastel and ceramics classes. He was walking Auli, for a change, so Sören stepped outside, while Auli wagged his tail and barked in greeting.  
  
"Usually Alejandro walks him?" Sören heard himself wondering aloud, and hated that he had let that slip, not wanting to be seen wondering after Alejandro at all.  
  
"Yes, he's walked him twice today. Right now he's composing."  
  
"Ah." Sören thought of the way he'd been drawn to Alejandro's music, the beauty of listening to him play, the sweet voice, and watching him in the feverish act of writing songs. He was glad Alejandro was still doing that, thinking of his own experience with not being able to make art at all for a year after their breakup, and how it had felt like losing a limb; Alejandro's music was too beautiful to lose from the world, and it was important to keep that alive.  
  
"Shall we drive together into town tomorrow? I can pick you up in the Bentley."  
  
"That makes sense." Sören nodded. "And then Friday - I have off and Nico and I are going on a day trip, but I'd forgotten it's the summer solstice! Last year, we had a party at the studio and we're gonna do that again this year, with a bonfire and a potluck, if you're interested."  
  
"I am, thank you."  
  
"Good." Sören smiled back. "I'll see you tomorrow morning, já? Like I said, make sure to wear something you don't mind getting dirty, since pastels and clay can be a bit messy."  
  
"I'll wear a T-shirt and jeans."  
  
"I find it hard to believe you have that in your wardrobe. You're always so... stylish."  
  
"I do. Sometimes I do things that require more casual clothing." Van grinned.  
  
"OK."  
  
"I'll bring a change of clothes, as well, in case I get too dirty."  
  
"That sounds safe." Sören stooped down to give Auli pettings then, and laughed as the sheepdog licked his face. "Well, I'll let you get back to your walk. I'd offer to come along, but I'm in the middle of working on art -"  
  
"I understand. Have a good evening, Sören." He reached out to touch Sören's shoulder, and then wrapped a stray curl around his finger, looking into Sören's eyes, before walking off.  
  
The touch was like an electric shock. Sören was breathing harder when he re-entered the cabin, his face flushed, feeling the butterflies in his stomach again.  
  
It was going to be a long night, waiting for tomorrow morning. Sören took that giddy, sexually charged energy and brought out a blank canvas, setting it up on the easel. It was time to start painting.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören ended up staying up all night painting, which was far from the first time he'd been so compelled by an art project he couldn't put it down. Dooku had been with Sören long enough to understand Sören's creative processes, and was amused rather than annoyed when Sören crawled into bed for a two-hour nap before the alarm went off, chuckling as he rolled against Sören's back and his arms encircled the younger man.  
  
"Thank you for getting it," Sören whispered, reaching up to stroke Dooku's arms, his hands, covering them with his.  
  
"Thank you for being you." He nuzzled Sören's curls. "Your art is a gift to this world."  
  
They went to sleep, and when the alarm went off, Sören made an inhuman noise at the intrusion. Even after coffee and a shower to wake up, Sören was sleep deprived, and yet the creative fire still burned, taking a glance at the far-from-finished canvas, lamenting that he had to work today and couldn't just paint that.  
  
_Well, at least I get to be around the subject._  
  
Seeing Van roll up in the Bentley brightened Sören's spirits, grinning as he got in the car. "Good morning," he said, his voice husky from fatigue.  
  
"Good morning." Then a quirk of the eyebrow. "You look as if you haven't slept."  
  
"I didn't get much sleep, no. I was up quite late working on a painting. Every now and again, my muse likes to do that to me. Alejandro is the same way, as I'm sure you've found out. We used to operate on a very similar creative schedule, in sync with each other -" Sören remembered Van's mention of Alejandro composing, last night, and wondered if Alejandro hadn't slept either, if they were still synced up after all this time apart. "and we'd pull at least one or two all-nighters a week, creating together in the same room. We really got that about each other, what it was like to be  _consumed_  by the work." He ran a nervous hand through his curls, self-conscious at bringing that up, and feeling the sharp ache of missing that, still, the way they'd fueled each other, the art and music thriving in their little world...  
  
"Would you like to grab coffee on the way to the studio, then? My treat."  
  
"Yes,  _please_ , and  _takk_ , that's nice of you."  
  
They showed up at Logifugl Listaskóli with large cups of hot coffee, though Sören wondered if it should be iced on a day like today, where it was already balmy by Akureyri standards. Most of the students had already arrived, waiting patiently for Sören to let them in the building, sitting around outside talking, drinking their own beverages, smoking, laughing, the easy social space of people from a small town where everyone knew each other. Sören had grown up feeling like an outsider, and things like small talk, casual familiarity, still were difficult for him - he would always be different, and the secrets he kept of his power were ones that he couldn't afford to let out, needing to keep his guard up at all times. But since his return to Akureyri over a year ago, the studio had made him a part of the community, and the warm welcome he got from his students always put a spring in his step, a smile on his face. He would take something over nothing.  
  
When the pastel class assembled in the art room, Sören started off by addressing the class in English. "We have a visitor today who doesn't speak much Icelandic, so if we could all speak English in the class today, I'd appreciate it."  
  
Van got a lot of curious looks. He seemed to take it in stride, smiling as he reached for a sheet of ingres paper. There was a choice of oil pastels or chalk pastels to work with. "I usually go for the oil pastels," Sören said, "but today I want to play with chalk. Like a big kid." He grinned, making Van's smile broaden, and Van watched him intently as Sören put on an apron and then tied his hair up into a loose man bun. "So I don't get chalk dust in my hair," Sören explained.  
  
"So... what happens now?" Van asked. "Do you have a subject and we all try to draw it...?"  
  
"No." Sören shook his head. "This is one of my freestyle classes - people pay to show up, use the art supplies and make something, and get encouragement and feedback from other people making things. I have some classes with themes, the children's classes tend to have activities I plan out, like we just finished a series on mandalas, but most of my adult classes are fairly anything-goes, with the medium involved. I like to see what people come up with. It keeps things interesting and exciting." He grinned again.  
  
"I see."  
  
"Jæja, so just... draw what you want. I'm here to offer feedback, and assist with techniques if you need help with rubbing it." Sören's mind went immediately in the gutter, replaying the night of passion they'd had, and now there was a fantasy of Van taking him right there on the art table.  _Fuck._  "I mean, ah, the pastels. How to blend them, and suchlike."  
  
For the next ninety minutes, Sören went back and forth between working with pastels on a sheet of ingres paper, and walking around the room to observe, offer feedback, and any advice requested on blending or other pastel techniques.   
  
Unsurprisingly, some of the students were curious about the guest, and asked him a few questions.  
  
"Where are you from?" Guðmundr asked.  
  
"Around." Van smiled. Then he said, "If you mean more recently, I have a residence in London."  
  
"So you're a friend of Sören's?" María asked.  
  
Van and Sören exchanged glances, and the smile of two people who had shared intimacy and had no regrets. "We met a few years ago, yes," Van said. "I'm quite fond of him."  
  
Sören had that fluttery, happy feeling. He bit his lower lip and crinkled his nose, and flushed when he saw Van was watching that reaction, a look in his eye like a wolf looking at dinner. His cock started waking up, under the art table.  _Down, boy,_  Sören told himself.  
  
Eventually the questions stopped, as the students knew there was a line between friendly curiosity at the foreigner and invasion of privacy. Every now and again Sören stole glances at what Van was doing - Van was drawing with oil pastels, a backdrop of nebulas and twilight with a pattern of seven stars surrounding an eight-spoked flaming star, which Sören found curious considering his own prior history with the symbol. He had another moment of wondering if his meeting with Van had been coincidence and if Van was at least mildly Force sensitive, and quickly batted those thoughts away, not wanting to get his hopes up.  
  
As for Sören, he was drawing the seven veils he'd painted in  _Dancer in the Darkness_ , the first painting he'd made after the year of not being able to create following the breakup with Alejandro, which in fact had been a painting inspired by Van, using his likeness, but Sören felt like making his eyes a shocking violet, matching some of the flowers in the garden he was in, and some of the colors of the nebulae in the veils he danced with. It had taken over a year after finishing that painting, to show it anywhere - Justin had belittled him enough to make him stop trying to get shows and promote his art. It had been Frankie who pushed him to show again, once Justin was gone, and at the first show he had after the breakup, a fast-talking Brit named Clarissa aka Charlie had schmoozed him and purchased the painting "on behalf of a friend" who she said had been following his work for some time. The buyer had insisted on paying Sören double what he was willing to sell it for, and Charlie wouldn't take no for an answer. Sören thought about that now, hoping that whoever the painting went to still loved and appreciated it, giving it the place of honor that it deserved.   
  
In Sören's soft pastel drawing, those same veils were now whirling in the air, and in the space between, there was the Dimmuborgir, looming like a gateway. It just felt right to include that in the painting somehow - Sören had loved the site all his life, a love instilled in him by his mother, who frequently took the children there in the years before she died. Sören had watched her, as a child, thinking that it looked like she was waiting for something, the way Sören had stayed up all night when he was very small hoping to see the Yule Lads. When he got older, he thought maybe his perception was incorrect, but he couldn't shake the feeling that his mother was hoping to see something she'd seen once before, and one of the great tragedies of her life was never getting to see it again.  
  
After ninety minutes passed, it was time for wrap-up. People could show their finished works or work-in-progress - there was a safe place for the sheets of paper to go if they weren't done yet, so the students could resume work on them next week. Sören went around the room clockwise, smiling as each person shared, in English, what they were working on, and a bit about what inspired them if they felt so inclined. Van was the last person to go before Sören himself, and he said simply, "The teacher of your class shines very brightly. It's a tribute to him." He gave Sören the pastel drawing and said, "A gift for you."  
  
Sören got choked up, so much so that he couldn't share his own drawing. He found himself hugging Van, and getting the chalk dust on his hands all over Van's shirt, which made him feel guilty and a little stupid, but Van just chuckled at it, hugging Sören back.  
  
Before the class got out, Sören reminded everyone of the solstice party tomorrow evening, starting at 7 PM, which would last until 2-3 AM if people felt like being around that long. Sören also said, "I'm going to be tallying the poll between classes. I'll be announcing the results at the ceramics class but if you're not there I'll also be mentioning it at the party tomorrow and on the website."  
  
When the last student departed and Sören and Van were alone, Sören set to cleanup, to get the room ready for the ceramics class. There was a mini-fridge, and Sören told Van he could help himself to whatever was in it. Van brought out cold water, and Sören took the bottle with a " _Takk._ " Then he looked at Van and chuckled. "I really did a number on your shirt, I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't worry about it. It will wash." Van laughed too. "I thought about changing but I'll wait until after the ceramics class, just so I don't put on fresh clothes and get those dirty as well."  
  
"For this next class," Sören said, "you have the option of sculpting, working on the pottery wheel, or glazing one of the pots I threw for people who just want to paint things."  
  
Van considered, then he said, "Do you think I could do both? Glaze during the class, and then perhaps when everyone is gone, you could show me how to use the pottery wheel?"  
  
"We could do that." Sören nodded.  
  
When the pastels and papers were put away, and the table cleaned of chalk dust and oil pastel smudges, Sören brought out the ballot box, which was just a shoebox with a slot cut into it, and the shoebox had been covered up in glittery wrapping paper.  
  
"What's that for?" Van asked, sipping his water.  
  
"So, a few of my students suggested that we have, er, music classes." Sören scowled. "I don't play an instrument, and I'm not really thrilled with the idea of hiring another instructor, but I want to make my students happy. But, I'm not going to go to that trouble if it's just a few people who want it, if it's not a majority opinion. I decided I'd take a vote on it, told everyone to vote and put their names on the ballot."  
  
"That's fair of you."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "Here goes." He opened the box, and emptied its contents onto the table. With a pen and paper sitting next to him, he began to notch the votes. Of sixty-four votes, forty-seven of them were yes, and half of those forty-seven were specifically interested in the class for themselves. Twenty-three was not a majority but it also wasn't a number he could dismiss as "just a few people", it was enough to mean that he had to now look into how to get the music class started.  
  
Sören leaned back in his chair, took a swig of water, and sighed.  
  
Van looked at the time. "When does your next class start?"  
  
"In about two hours."  
  
"Would you like me to pick up something for you to eat, and bring it here?"  
  
"That would be good of you." Sören smiled. "And then I can take you on a little tour of the pieces I have up on display here?"  
  
"I'd like that." Van also smiled. "Do you have anything in mind for what you'd like to eat?"  
  
_You._  Sören flushed, wicked mental images flashing, and he cleared his throat, shifting his weight nervously. "Fish and chips?" He took out his wallet.  
  
Van waved his hand dismissively. "I'm paying."  
  
"OK." Sören nodded. "If you insist."  
  
"I insist."  
  
Van came back twenty minutes later with a box of fish and chips, and a container of fresh strawberries and fresh cream. "I passed by a stand where a local grower had these," Van said, pointing to it. "I couldn't resist."  
  
" _Takk._ " Sören was delighted, he loved strawberries. "There's so many of them, we should share."  
  
Sören ate his fish and chips while Van wrote things down in a leather-bound journal, and when Sören had finished his lunch, it was time to dig into the strawberries. Sören dipped his in the cream, and took a bite. It was perfectly sweet, and Sören heard himself letting out a "mmmmmm" without thinking about it. Then he blushed, feeling self-conscious. "Sorry," he said.  
  
"No need to apologize." Van's full, sensuous lips wrapped around a strawberry, his eyes locked on Sören. Sören remembered the way those lips had suckled his nipples, and when Van licked off cream from his fingers Sören remembered that tongue, working inside of him so sweetly.  
  
He was getting hard again.  _This is bad._  
  
Van dipped another strawberry into the cream, and then he held it to Sören's mouth. There was a feeling in the back of Sören's head that this was somehow wrong, crossing the line of sexually charged behavior... but Sören couldn't resist. His lips wrapped around the proferred strawberry. It was juicier than the one he'd had previously, with juices and cream spilling over Van's fingers, and then he held them to Sören's mouth as well, and Sören found himself licking and sucking Van's fingers clean. His cock was definitely hard now, and the voice in the back of his brain was screaming  _You need to cut this out, you're married_ , but it wasn't like they were  _doing_ anything?  
  
...Yet?  
  
"Your turn," Van told Sören.  
  
With a laugh that was equal parts nervous fluster and giddy rush, Sören dipped a strawberry into the fresh cream and held it to those gorgeous lips, his cock throbbing as he watched Van's lips on the strawberry, the way Van's eyes watched Sören's every move as he chewed. Sören's fingers and hand were covered in strawberry juice and cream, and Van licked and sucked Sören's fingers as Sören had done to him, and then licked the juice and cream from Sören's palm as well.  
  
Van was feeding him another strawberry, and Sören fed him one at the same time. They continued licking and sucking each other's fingers.  
  
The last strawberry, Van offered to Sören. It was the biggest, juiciest one of all. Juice and cream exploded, running down Sören's beard and neck. Van leaned over and licked up the mess, like a playful puppy. Sören laughed - it was funny - but the strawberry wasn't the only thing that had made a mess; Sören could feel himself leaking precum in his boxer-briefs.  
  
Sören was both disappointed and relieved that the strawberries were gone.  
  
"I'd like to take you to that stand if they're open next week," Van said.  
  
"I'm sure they will be."  
  
"We could go for a drive... I enjoyed seeing you enjoy those, but it would be even prettier to watch you in the sunshine."  
  
Sören blushed. He bit his lower lip and crinkled his nose again. His head was spinning, stomach fluttering, and he needed to get his cock down, now. "You can help me pick out a frame for the pastel drawing you made me sometime next week, too," Sören said. "I'd like to hang it up somewhere."  
  
"That's very sweet of you."  
  
"No, it's very sweet of  _you._  I've gifted several people with art, but this is the first time anyone has gifted me with a drawing they've made." Sören looked at it again, sitting on a table across the room, in a spot away from the works in progress. "It's lovely. Have you ever drawn before?"  
  
"I illustrated a book once."  
  
" _Really._ " Sören's eyebrows shot up. "What kind of book was it? Children's... fantasy... sci-fi..."  
  
"Erotic art."  
  
_Of course it was._  "Oh, my."  
  
Van gave him a wicked grin. "I wish I had a copy to show you, but it's... fairly limited edition. Not many copies exist."  
  
"Independently published?"  
  
"Something like that."  
  
"That's fascinating." Sören was getting hot and bothered again. "I wish you had a copy to show me, too. But then, I'd gotten the live, in-person show, and I think that's probably better." He couldn't believe he'd said that aloud, and wanted to kick himself.  
  
There was a moment of silence, as if Van wanted to say something but was waiting for Sören to give the right cue, and Sören looked at the time and needed to pull himself together before his students arrived for the ceramics class. "Right, so I was going to show you my etchings," Sören said, and then realized the double-entendre, blushing fiercely as he and Van got up from the table, with Van following closely behind Sören into the hall.  
  
Sören had a collection of work spanning the last decade, and with each painting, Sören had a little story about it, where he was at in his life, what inspired him. Several of the pieces were made during his relationship with Alejandro. "This is called  _River of Endless Tears_ ," Sören said, pointing to a painting of a river with several ships sailing down it, through a frozen landscape, against the backdrop of a wild, stormy sky. It was relentlessly bleak, save for the flaming star banners on each ship - a recurring motif in Sören's work - and lanterns hung from the ships, "carrying the fire," Sören said.  
  
Van was very quiet, moreso than usual, almost as if he was holding his breath or couldn't breathe at the sight of it.  
  
"Alejandro and I had..." Sören ran a hand through his curls, remembering. "A very special bond. Like I told you, we would spend hours, sometimes all-nighters, in the same room where he'd play, compose, and I'd draw and paint. It was... symbiotic. Like we were feeding each other, somehow. And if you've heard his music... it's beautiful, but haunting. There was, is, such sadness in him, and that really came through with this one particular piece he was working on, and I made this during one of the sessions he was working on it. It was like... symbolic... of whatever trauma he's been through." Sören ran a finger along the edge of the frame. "I almost didn't hang it up here, it felt a little too private, but my husband maintains this is one of my best pieces, especially because it's so different from everything I've ever done - everything else usually has super-saturated color and this is very stark by comparison. And I felt like it was important to show that melancholy to people, like it was a testament of survival, somehow."  
  
"It's..." Van searched for the right words. "Beautiful isn't quite the word for it. It  _rends._  You can look at it and  _feel_ how much pain he was in." His eyes met Sören's. "How much pain  _you've_  been in, to understand that kind of pain."  
  
"Alejandro and I  _got_  each other. Losing him was devastating to me, because we were so much on the same wavelength. In the last couple years we were together, my art shows involved him. He'd perform live, singing, playing the guitar, as people browsed my paintings, and I would paint live for the audience while he played, and sell the finished painting to the highest bidder when the night was over. It was an incredible experience, the two of us really thrived on that." Sören folded his arms, shivering even though it wasn't at all cold today, and especially not with the warmth of Van's presence and his hot breath so close behind him. "And we got each other in terms of depression, too. When you met me, years ago, I wasn't in a good place. That ex I told you about, that night, that was him. Losing him was like losing a piece of my soul."   
  
Tears came to Sören's eyes now; even as he remembered the delicious, sensual, passionate lovemaking with Alejandro that always came after the intense joint art-and-music sessions, both at galleries and creating privately together at home - sex that was sublime, the union of sacred and profane - he wasn't hard anymore. His ache was for the deep sorrow that Alejandro had known, sorrow so deep he could only share in bits and pieces, never the full story, but what Sören knew was enough. He had been so angry with him for going off to an arranged marriage to please his family, and so  _smug_  that it hadn't worked out. But he could only imagine, now, that whatever he'd done, it hadn't been an easy time for him, either. Alejandro had cared enough to show up here, and make sure that Sören was truly happy with his husband. Sören wondered if Alejandro had spent sleepless, tormented nights the way he had, thinking about what they'd shared, what they'd lost.  
  
He wondered, now, if Alejandro had been cut off from his music for a year the way Sören had been cut off from his art. That thought  _hurt._  
  
Van's arms wrapped around Sören from behind, and Sören leaned into him, sighing at the comforting touch.  
  
"Losing the first and only person who  _got_  it," Sören said, "I felt like I was worthless, and there was the self-destructive, empty shell of a person you met that night. I wish I could tell you honestly that night with you was the last time I went clubbing and did E looking for a quick fuck, but it wasn't. It happened a few times after I went to London. It eventually stopped, though, for reasons." Those reasons had been Justin, and Sören didn't want to get into the sad, sordid story of all of that right now. Just this was enough.  
  
"I regret that our paths did not cross in London," Van said, playing with one of Sören's stray curls. His arms tightened around Sören.  
  
"Same here."  
  
Sören was getting aroused again now, and that was exactly the opposite of why he'd started on this tour in the first place. He continued to take Van through the paintings. While there were a few paintings from when Sören was single and between relationships, the overwhelming majority of what he saw fit to present to others was made either when he was with Alejandro, or in the time he'd been with Dooku. Van paused at a painting of Dooku at the Dimmuborgir, a dramatic sunset over snows and ice, where Dooku was wearing a fur-lined cape blowing in the wind, a silver crown, carrying a sword and a shield bearing the flaming star, set with blue diamonds. The painting was entitled  _Once and Future King_ , fitting as he looked absolutely regal. The Dimmuborgir shimmered ominously, like an opening gate; if you looked  _very_  closely, you could see a burning eye. Dooku was watching, waiting, glaring at it, a predatory look on his face as if he were going off to war, fighting whatever that was.  
  
"I took Nico with me to Akureyri in November 2017," Sören explained, "showed him around, we went to the Dimmuborgir and I took photos. Then I just... did what I do, painting, embellishing from my mind's eye. I suppose this was inspired by the passion he has for justice - he was a career barrister. I really think he ought to have gone into politics, maybe he could have made a difference with the mess the UK's in right now." Sören shrugged. "And... the way he made me feel safe with him right away, like he'd end anyone who tried to hurt me." A throaty laugh. "I had an ex, named Justin, who... ah... wasn't very nice to me, and he talked about having nightmares about that eye. Anytime he dreamed about it, was when he, um. Wasn't very nice. I guess that, too, was symbolic, my new man battling the evil ex."  
  
He pointed to a print of the painting he'd done of Frankie - Frankie herself had the original - where Frankie was clad in armor, carrying a similar sword and shield, and her armor bore the flaming star as well. It felt right to put them side by side. She was also in a winter landscape, at the bank of a river that looked very similar to the one in  _The River of Endless Tears_ , snowflakes falling around her, but she was shining, her sword aflame, on bended knee like a knight swearing service. Where Frankie had a pink mohawk in the real world and was naturally a ginger, Sören had portrayed her here with short dark hair, messy and just covering the ears, but otherwise the face was the same, it was recognizable as Frankie to those who knew her. Her portrait was entitled, simply,  _Sister_.  
  
"2016," Van observed, reading the date.  
  
"Já, that was... another bad time in my life." Sören cringed, remembering Justin. "That was when I was with the aforementioned Justin. Frankie was my saving grace." Sören quickly explained, "She's my best friend, about to become my sister-in-law."  
  
They were coming near to the end of the line. "Not everything is here," Sören said. "I have some stuff at home, that I haven't shown here for one reason or another."  
  
"Have you ever painted Alejandro?"  
  
"...Yes, but... you know how he is. He doesn't like pictures taken of him, and it felt disrespectful of his privacy to show anyone the two paintings I made of him. So much so that he doesn't even know I painted him." Sören chuckled, and ran a nervous hand through his curls.  
  
"I'd like to see them, sometime."  
  
"Er. Perhaps. They are kind of private."  
  
Van's lips quirked. "Erotic art?"  
  
"One of them is." Sören quickly changed the subject, not wanting to get aroused again. He pointed to the painting that had started it all, the two phoenixes that he had on his back, fire and water, tails twined and hooked through the top of a flaming star. "As you can see from this and the others, it's why I found it curious that you gave me the gift you did, as this is a recurring symbol in my work."  
  
"That is indeed very interesting."  
  
"You've seen my ink."  _And I've seen yours._  Sören shivered again, wanting to trace Van's ink with his fingertips, his tongue...  _Fuck. Behave. This is getting out of hand._  "I designed that. But it's incomplete. It's supposed to have  _that_  in there." Sören pointed to the star. "My funds for tattooing ran out before I could add the star, and even when I had the money again, I just... didn't. It's like I've been waiting for... I don't know what, really." Sören shrugged. "I might get it done later this year, I think. I don't like leaving loose ends tied up."  
  
Sören then took Van on the pottery walkthrough, with a couple of abstract sculptures in the hall, and some pots and bowls in the art rooms, and a shelf of vases and plates in the community room. The pots, bowls and vases had plants in them year-round, and Sören was watering what needed water. "I took a ceramics class when I was in London," Sören said, "and when I started this place up, I invested in a kiln. I find the marriage of earth and fire really... therapeutic."  
  
"You are indeed very fiery." Van nodded. "I can see why you would be drawn to a creative process that involves transformation by fire."  
  
"It's a Sagittarius thing, I guess." Sören smirked.  
  
The afternoon ceramics students started to pour in, and Sören greeted them warmly. Two had returned from the morning's pastel class. When everyone was assembled, Sören said in English, "We have a guest today, named Van. He's not from Iceland, so I ask that we speak in English."  
  
"Nice to meet you!" boomed out Jónas, a large, jolly farmer in his early fifties. He grinned at Sören. "Are the two of you related?"  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. "Er... not that I'm aware of?"  
  
"Hm. You look like you could be related, somehow."  
  
Sören snickered, finding that hilarious for some reason, and Van seemed to be highly amused by it as well.  
  
"Also," Sören said, quickly changing the subject, "before we get into what we're doing, I have the results of the ballot. Twenty-three of you said that you would attend music classes if they were offered here, and that's more than enough for me to look into getting a music instructor here. It probably will take at least a few weeks, because it's an involved process of finding a music teacher - they don't just grow on trees around here, I'll probably have to get someone from Reykjavik, and that probably means they'll want to be paid a bit for their trouble..."  
  
Van cleared his throat, and Sören's attention snapped to him.  
  
"Sören," he said, "it's not that complicated."  
  
"Oh?"  
  
"You literally have a musician living up the street. I'm sure he can be persuaded to come here and help out a couple times a week."  
  
Sören opened his mouth, wanting to protest, but the class immediately began encouraging this, excited that a music teacher had fallen into place, wanting Sören to talk to him and make an arrangement for classes as soon as possible. When the commotion died down, Sören looked at Van and said, " _Takk,_ " in a way that let Van know he'd poured gasoline on a bonfire.  
  
Van gave him an innocent smile that wasn't innocent at all. "I like being helpful," he said.  
  
"You're  _super_  helpful."  
  
_I have not yet begun to assist you_  flickered at the back of Sören's consciousness, as if Van had spoken into his mind or let shielding down - but he couldn't have done that, could he? Sören shivered, again, the air not cold at all.  
  
Sören worked on glazing his latest vase, with Van also glazing, working on a cup. Those who worked the pottery wheels took turns, while others molded the clay into sculptures. This was one of Sören's favorite classes, thriving on the rush of watching the worked clay, people making objects that were both beautiful and useful.  
  
It was always over too soon. There was cleanup - Sören let Van linger with the glaze, continuing to paint, as he put away everything else, save a bit of clay that Van would be throwing on the wheel. When it was time, Van got up, and Sören led him over to the pottery wheels.  
  
They sat across from each other. Van put clay on the wheel and it got going, but he was having trouble controlling it, as beginners often did. Instinctively, as Sören had done with other students, he reached out and put his hands over Van's, guiding them in the movement, the flow that would shape the vessel. "You have to center the clay on the wheel," Sören said.   
  
Then, the clay moved, swirled, with Sören adding water to it, and telling Van when to add water, until Van got the hang of when to add water himself.  
  
"There are different shapes you can do with it," Sören said, showing him, guiding his hands again, the clay flowing, flowing, thicker, thinner, taller, shorter. "Many possibilities."  
  
Sören's hands were tingling, and it wasn't just from the creative energy. Van had been looking at the wheel, concentrating, but now their eyes were locked, and Sören had to resist the urge to run his hands up Van's arms, over his body...  
  
Van shaped the clay into a bowl. When he was satisfied, the wheel stopped, and they just spent a moment looking at it.  
  
"It has to dry for a week," Sören said, "and then we trim, and then we glaze, and then we fire."  
  
Van nodded. "So I'll have to come back."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Van smiled. "Good."  
  
Sören also smiled.  
  
Van looked down at his shirt and his jeans, which were muddy now, in addition to the chalk dust from earlier. "I definitely need to change before I get back in the Bentley."  
  
"This is why I wear an apron," Sören said. "You can get ready while I finish the cleanup, OK?"  
  
Van departed to the bathroom, and Sören carefully put Van's bowl on a drying rack, protecting it with a plastic cover that he tagged with Van's name on it. When Sören was finished cleaning the wheel and was putting away the glaze Van had been using, Van came out from the hall bathroom with his shirt off.  
  
"I forgot to bring my shirt in with me," Van explained.  
  
But as he went for the bag that contained a change of clothing, he lingered, and Sören couldn't help ogling him - the lean, muscular body, the swirling dark tattoos that covered him. Remembering that bare chest from their night of passion. Wanting to explore, tease, take care of the man who had shown him kindness, who had been kind to Alejandro, who deserved to be spoiled as Van had once said Sören deserved to be spoiled.  
  
_No. You cannot. You need to stop thinking like this._  
  
Their eyes met.  
  
"I, ah." Sören looked down, and bit his lower lip. "We should get going."  
  
Van threw on a clean shirt - Sören was a little disappointed - and after Sören turned the lights off and locked up, they got in the Bentley.  
  
"Thank you for coming out today," Sören said.  
  
"It was a pleasure. I'm looking forward to doing the ceramics class again."  
  
"I'd like that a lot. And you'll still be coming to the solstice party tomorrow?"  
  
"I will indeed. Perhaps we can dance together."  
  
"Perhaps we could."  
  
Van drove slowly, as if he was reluctant to bring Sören back. But they did, finally, end up back in Svalbarðseyri, and Van pulled over in front of Sören's cabin.  
  
"Do you want to come in for coffee or tea?"  
  
"I need to get in and take a shower," Van said.  
  
"OK."  
  
Their eyes met again. "A pity you can't join me."  
  
Sören's face flushed, and he stammered, cock waking up again. Van took Sören's hand and pressed it to his mouth, giving it a soft kiss, and then his fingers stroked Sören's cheek, cupped Sören's chin. "If your husband were willing to let you play," Van husked, "I'd like a repeat of that night we spent together."  
  
Sören's breath came out in a sharp hiss. He didn't know what to say to that. "Er."  
  
"I hope I didn't offend you."  
  
"No. Flattered, not offended." Sören bit his lower lip. "I..." He closed his eyes, searching for the right thing to say. Nothing felt like the right thing, exactly, but he had to come close enough. "I'll... ah... I'll get back to you on that."  
  
"Please do." Van leaned in then, and his lips brushed against Sören's, gently. Their mouths didn't open, there was no tongue, but the kiss still sent a jolt through Sören, making him quiver, feverish.  
  
_If I don't get out of this car right now I am going to end up with my face in his lap, devouring him alive._  Sören wanted to suck him badly, wanted to drag him out on the ground and  _ride_  him right there in the grass... He shuddered, aching, twinging, wanting.  
  
Van's voice was a caress. "Have a good evening, beauty."  
  
"I'll see you tomorrow." Sören opened the car door, waved, and rushed off to the cabin.  
  
Dooku wasn't home yet - there was a note, saying he'd gone hiking with Alejandro. Sören marched immediately to the bathroom, pulled down his jeans and his boxer-briefs as quickly as he could, shielded himself in the Force as strongly as he could, and then took his cock into his hand, stroking fast and furious - he hadn't jerked off this hard in a long time. Five minutes later he doubled over against the sink, crying out " _Van_ " as he climaxed to the mental images of riding him, caressing him, being caressed by him, hours of sensual pleasure, lost in Van's beauty, his tender loving care, giving the same back to him.  
  
"Fuck," Sören said, wiping himself up.  
  
He was in over his head, now, and he couldn't keep hiding this from Dooku - it wasn't simply that they had a Force bond and there was only so long he could mask the attraction without Dooku finding out somehow, but even if they weren't both Force-sensitive, Sören would still feel bad, like he was being dishonest.  
  
He didn't want to be dishonest with the man he'd married, the man he still loved and lusted for very much. But he worried that if he was honest, he'd hurt Dooku - the very last person in the universe he wanted to hurt - and he worried that then he'd lose everything.  
  
Sören leaned back, covered his face with his hands, and sighed.  _What to do?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The erotic book Van mentions illustrating is a book he also authored, called _The Garden of a Thousand Delights_ , from Spiced_Wine's universe. ;)


	16. Cascade

**Cascade**

 

 

Sören poured himself a shot of Brennivín, turned on his laptop, and logged into Stardew Valley, needing to do something to ground out - the painting beckoned to him, but working on a painting of Van right this minute was perhaps unwise.  
  
But the game wasn't providing its usual distraction.  
  
Sören frowned, and opened the family chat server.  
  
**[5:28 PM] Sören:**  h-hewwo  
  
**[5:28 PM] Frankie:**  HIIIIIIIIIIIII  
  
**[5:29 PM] Margrét:**  *glomp*  
  
**[5:29 PM] Margrét:**  how goes it  
  
**[5:30 PM] Sören:**  it goes  
  
**[5:32 PM] Dagnýr:**  Hey, you caught me on my lunch break.  
  
**[5:33 PM] Sören:**  how's things up there in the Great White North  
  
**[5:34 PM] Dagnýr:**  Doing well! My TED talk should be up on YouTube in a couple weeks, and I've gotten the first part of the genealogical research done.  
  
**[5:35 PM] Sören:**  really  
  
**[5:37 PM] Dagnýr:**  By "first part", I mean up to the late 19th century, because there's a lot, and I'm in "thorough investigation" mode where I'm looking at literally every relative we have on record to see if there's anyone else that was noted to be odd in some way, like us. Because if there's more than just us, it lends weight to the idea that this is genetic and comes from somewhere.  
  
**[5:38 PM] Sören:**  OK  
  
**[5:40 PM] Dagnýr:**  Actually @Frankie it's a good thing you're here because this is relevant to your interests!  
  
**[5:42 PM] Frankie:**  Yeah?  
  
**[5:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  You have a great-great grandfather who came to Ireland from Iceland after Mt. Hekla erupted in the late 19th century. That's someone in our family tree, so we're distantly related.  
  
**[5:44 PM] Frankie:**  Yeah, my aunt told me a long time ago we have a tiny amount of Icelandic blood.  
  
**[5:44 PM] Frankie:**  Now it feels even less like a coincidence that Sören and I met in London.  
  
**[5:45 PM] Dagnýr:**  And it happens that you yourself are Force sensitive.  
  
**[5:45 PM] Dagnýr:**  I feel a bit like Alice falling down the rabbit hole. "Curiouser and curiouser."  
  
**[5:48 PM] Margrét:**  Very curious, indeed.  
  
**[5:50 PM] Margrét:**  So what, we're like sort of committing incest now  
  
**[5:51 PM] Dagnýr:**  It's far enough back that it's not incest in the same way as, like, first cousin incest would be.  
  
**[5:53 PM] Dagnýr:**  Besides, everyone in Iceland is distantly related somehow.  
  
**[5:55 PM] Sören:**  I think it's kind of cool that Frankie is a distant relative!  
  
**[5:57 PM] Sören:**  she felt like family to me from the start, it's almost like I knew on a subconscious, Force-y level, even if I didn't understand it consciously.  
  
**[5:59 PM] Dagnýr:**  So yeah, that was the easy part. Now I have to do more digging and that means bureaucracy, yay.  
  
**[6:01 PM] Margrét:**  You should ask Kol for help.  
  
**[6:03 PM] Margrét:**  He works part-time at the library in Reykjavik. This is literally part of his job, is curating these kinds of records.  
  
**[6:04 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'll do that, then.  
  
**[6:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  How are things going with you and him?  
  
**[6:06 PM] Dagnýr:**  (don't make me regret asking this)  
  
**[6:07 PM] Margrét:**  Very, very well. Actually...  
  
**[6:09 PM] Margrét:**  In October, when my lease is up, I'm going to be looking for a bigger place for my bar, and Kol, Frankie and I are going to rent a larger apartment or even a house together, because my flat is barely big enough for me and Frankie, never mind three people.  
  
**[6:11 PM] Sören:**   ~~you guys should come up here to Akureyri~~  
  
**[6:12 PM] Margrét:**  ha ha ha no  
  
**[6:13 PM] Margrét:**   ~~you and Dooku should come down to Reykjavik~~  
  
**[6:14 PM] Margrét:**  But that's what's going on lately, is the three of us are preparing for that.  
  
**[6:15 PM] Margrét:**  It's amazing how well things have been going.  
  
**[6:15 PM] Margrét:**  The three of us just really... fit well together.  
  
**[6:16 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'm happy for you.  
  
**[6:17 PM] Sören:**   ~~hi happy for you I'm Sören~~  
  
**[6:18 PM] Dagnýr:**  I couldn't see Matt and I letting a third person in our relationship but I'm glad it's been working out for you guys.  
  
**[6:19 PM] Margrét:**  Poly isn't for everyone, but when it works, it's a beautiful thing to love and be loved by multiple people, and see them loving each other. <3  
  
  
Sören opened up direct messaging with his sister.  
  
**[6:21 PM] Sören:**  hey I need to talk to you about something.  
  
**[6:22 PM] Sören:**  gonna get Frankie in here too  
  
**[6:23 PM] Margrét:**  :ok_hand:  
  
**[6:24 PM] Frankie:**  What's up?  
  
**[6:25 PM] Frankie:**  Are you OK?  
  
**[6:27 PM] Sören:**  yes? no? maybe?  
  
**[6:28 PM] Sören:**  can I trust you guys to keep anything I say in here, between the two of you, for right now?  
  
**[6:29 PM] Margrét:**  So long as you're not in any danger, yes.  
  
**[6:30 PM] Sören:**  brill  
  
**[6:30 PM] Sören:**  HOKAY SO  
  
**[6:30 PM] Sören:**  let me sum up  
  
**[6:30 PM] Sören:**  no is too much, let me esplain  
  
**[6:31 PM] Sören:**  that guy Van who is staying up the street from me this summer  
  
**[6:31 PM] Sören:**  he and I had a one night stand four years ago  
  
**[6:31 PM] Sören:**  he is still hot as fuck  
  
**[6:31 PM] Sören:**  we have been flirting like whoa  
  
**[6:32 PM] Sören:**  he wants to jump my bones again  
  
**[6:32 PM] Sören:**  I also want to jump his bones, but I don't want to cheat on Nico, and Van even said "if I have permission from my husband"  
  
**[6:34 PM] Sören:**  I've been trying to hide my attraction because I don't want to make Nico feel bad, make him think he's somehow "not enough" because look, y'all know he's still hung up about the age difference and worrying that he's been "unfair" and shit, and I don't want him to think I'm starting to think he's too old and want hot young stud to replace him  
  
**[6:35 PM] Sören:**  I want hot young stud AND him. Nico STILL gets me going.  
  
**[6:36 PM] Sören:**  so I don't know what to do here  
  
**[6:37 PM] Sören:**  you guys have experience with being in an open relationship and have made it work  
  
**[6:38 PM] Sören:**  it's not like I haven't known other people in open relationships  
  
**[6:38 PM] Sören:**  I just... didn't think this was an issue we'd be running into when we got together, so we never defined it as non-monogamy from the start, I think the assumption of monogamy was there  
  
**[6:39 PM] Margrét:**  OK baby brother gonna be really blunt with you  
  
**[6:39 PM] Margrét:**  You need to talk to Dooku about this, ASAP.  
  
**[6:41 PM] Margrét:**  You and him have a Force bond, and you're not going to be able to hide that attraction from him forever, especially if you and Van are around each other in his presence.  
  
**[6:42 PM] Margrét:**  And it's better he find out from you, telling him, rather than him seeing it/feeling it and you not telling him.  
  
**[6:43 PM] Margrét:**  Yes, it would have been easier if you guys were established as non-monogamous from the start, but a lot of people into poly start off monogamous and then decide to open up their relationship, for one reason or another.  
  
**[6:44 PM] Margrét:**  Leja and Hans, for example, didn't start off as swingers.  
  
**[6:44 PM] Sören:**  well this is the other thing  
  
**[6:44 PM] Sören:**  I don't necessarily want to be a "swinger"  
  
**[6:45 PM] Sören:**  I don't want to fool around with a lot of people  
  
**[6:46 PM] Margrét:**  But you do want to fool around with one, and if there's one, you should allow the possibility that there might be another down the road.  
  
**[6:47 PM] Margrét:**  For example  
  
**[6:48 PM] Margrét:**  Kol is still very interested in you.  
  
**[6:49 PM] Sören:**  LOL really.  
  
**[6:51 PM] Sören:**  I didn't completely put him off that date we had a year ago when I was too broken up over Nico and Alejandro to want to go there?  
  
**[6:53 PM] Margrét:**  No.  
  
**[6:53 PM] Margrét:**  And Frankie and I don't mind sharing him, if the two of you go want to go on a date and you feel like riding that ride at some point.  
  
**[6:54 PM] Margrét:**  Not saying you have to! It's cool either way. But if you ever wanted to hook up with him, we don't have a problem with it.  
  
**[6:54 PM] Margrét:**  But, I would prefer that you not do any of that until you've talked to Dooku first.  
  
**[6:55 PM] Margrét:**  Out of respect to Kol, as well as out of respect to my brother-in-law. Dooku has been through a lot, too, I care about him, he's fam, and he doesn't need any shady behind the back shit.  
  
**[6:56 PM] Sören:**  I'm talking to you precisely  _because_  I don't want to be shady about this.  
  
**[6:56 PM] Sören:**  I'm just at a loss as how to do it because it's literally like defusing a bomb.  
  
**[6:57 PM] Sören:**  I worry not just that he might say no and then we have even more awkwardness on our hands the rest of the summer, but I worry that he might be offended I'm even asking.  
  
**[6:58 PM] Margrét:**  Those are valid concerns, but putting myself in his shoes, I'd value your honesty far more than I would be offended by the idea that you wanted to shag someone else, especially if you make it really clear to him that you haven't lost interest in him.  
  
**[6:58 PM] Margrét:**  You could even sweeten the deal a bit.  
  
**[6:59 PM] Sören:**  what do you mean  
  
**[7:01 PM] Margrét:**  OK so a little TMI here  
  
**[7:02 PM] Margrét:**  Kol, Frankie, and I have had threesomes, and we've all been intimate with each other individually. But before we became a more equal triad, and Kol was just our occasional "side" partner, Frankie would "make it up" to me later. It's not that we're doing anything wrong or have anything to feel guilty about, it's a game we'd play.  
  
**[7:02 PM] Margrét:**  It actually made things more fun.  
  
**[7:02 PM] Margrét:**  Not to mention there's an element of teasing involved.  
  
**[7:03 PM] Margrét:**  It spices things up a bit.  
  
**[7:03 PM] Frankie:**  It sure does :D  
  
**[7:04 PM] Margrét:**  So if you treat it like that - "if you let me shag Van, you can have your way with me the next night", or even something like "you can 'punish' me for being 'naughty'"...  
  
**[7:04 PM] Sören:**  :squint:  
  
**[7:06 PM] Frankie:**  LMAO I can't believe you're giving BDSM advice to your own brother.  
  
**[7:06 PM] Frankie:**  This fucking family, I swear.  
  
**[7:08 PM] Margrét:**  Ari told me some things about the erotica Dooku writes, so I made some assumptions and I don't think they're wrong. :squint:  
  
**[7:08 PM] Margrét:**  ANYWAY  
  
**[7:09 PM] Margrét:**  If you make it a kind of game, Dooku might be more amenable to it and have less hang-ups about it being related to his age, y'know?  
  
**[7:10 PM] Sören:**  that makes sense  ~~and not gonna lie, is kind of hot, he hasn't tied me up in awhile and that would be fun~~  
  
**[7:13 PM] Margrét:**  *facepalm*  
  
**[7:14 PM] Sören:**  I OWED YOU ONE OK  
  
**[7:14 PM] Sören:**  but yeah, ah, thank you. OH I hear his keys, so I'm gonna bounce. I'll talk to him and let you know how it goes.  
  
**[7:15 PM] Margrét:**  Roger that.  
  
**[7:15 PM] Frankie:**  I'm sure he'll get rogered good.  
  
**[7:16 PM] Margrét:**

****

[Image: The "holy water eye drops" reaction pic.]

 

_  
  
  
Sören got up and greeted Dooku at the door, giving him a big hug and a kiss. "Hej,  _elskan_ ," he said. "How was the hike?"  
  
"Good," Dooku said, smiling. "How were your classes?"  
  
"Good."  
  
"Excellent. I'll be starting the grill momentarily. I apologize that I'm home a little later than expected, Alejandro and I stopped for coffee on the way back and had a bit of a book club."  
  
"It's all right." Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "So you guys seem to have really hit it off."  
  
"We have. It's a bit unnerving how much we have in common, but it's also... appreciated, I suppose you could say." A soft sigh. "A kindred spirit."  
  
Since Sören and Dooku were so opposite in many ways - much as they complemented one another, balanced each other out, and had a strong attraction in their opposite nature - Sören couldn't fault his husband for enjoying the company of someone who he had things in common with. It was, after all, why Sören and Frankie got along so well, and why Sören was closer to his sister than his twin brother. He wouldn't begrudge his husband that kind of friendship...  _I just wish it was with someone who wasn't my fucking ex._  It made it harder to stay angry with Alejandro. It also made it harder to keep avoiding him, to keep putting off the talks to get the closure they needed.  
  
_Fuck._  
  
Sören sat outside while Dooku made skewers of lamb and vegetables on the grill, and they ate together under the glow of the midnight sun. Sören thought about initiating the conversation they needed to have - still shielding himself, not wanting to give anything away before it was time - but he kept getting tongue-tied, feeling awkward about the whole thing.  
  
After dinner Dooku said, "I'll probably want to call it an early night, since we have the party to attend tomorrow and I know you at least will insist on being there past midnight."  
  
"That's fine." That also meant it was a bad idea to try to have that discussion now, because even if it went  _well_  - and Sören still didn't have any guarantee of that - they would both be wound up after having to be in "serious business mode".  
  
"And I'll want to stop at the supermarket tomorrow to pick up some odds and ends for our trip to the Goðafoss in the daytime, if you're still up for that."  
  
"I've been looking forward to it all week." Sören smiled.  
  
They sat side by side on the couch, with their respective laptops - Dooku was re-reading the latest portion of the story he was working on, and Sören played Stardew Valley. Then Sören noticed he opened the chat server, so Sören re-opened on his laptop.  
  
**[8:22 PM] Dooku:**  Good evening, all.  
  
**[8:23 PM] Ari:**  Good evening!  
  
**[8:24 PM] Margrét:**  *waves* Hello there! How are you doing?  
  
**[8:25 PM] Dooku:**  Very well. Yourself?  
  
**[8:27 PM] Margrét:**  Getting ready for Thursday night shenanigans at the bar... meeting with my band to discuss our show tomorrow... the usual.  
  
**[8:27 PM] Margrét:**  It's going to be a big one because it's the solstice and people kind of expect us to do this witchy aesthetic or whatever.  
  
**[8:28 PM] Sören:**  We're having a party tomorrow at the studio grounds. Bonfire, drinking, probably music and dancing.  
  
**[8:29 PM] Sören:**  But first, tomorrow in the afternoon, we're going to Goðafoss.  
  
**[8:31 PM] Margrét:**  Oh, cool.  
  
**[8:31 PM] Margrét:**  And how's your evening been? Anything fun?  
  
**[8:31 PM] Margrét:**  Any interesting discussions?  
  
**[8:32 PM] Sören:**  No, just, you know, the usual.  
  
  
Sören sent his sister a direct message.  
  
**[8:33 PM] Sören:**  :squint:  
  
**[8:34 PM] Margrét:**  :sunglasses:  
  
**[8:34 PM] Margrét:**  Just trying to be helpful.  
  
  
_You and Van,_  Sören thought to himself, thinking of earlier when he'd let his class know that twenty-three people wanted to take music classes, and Van had oh-so-helpfully reminded Sören a musician lived up the street - as if Sören could ever forget Alejandro's music, which had forever burned a place in his soul. And his students were, of course, all over that.  
  
Sören popped back into the group chat, and sure enough, now Dooku was also being helpful.  
  
  
**[8:36 PM] Dooku:**  Ah, I meant to ask you this during dinner... how did the vote go? About the music classes?  
  
**[8:37 PM] Sören:**  I'll tell you privately. Give me a few minutes, já?  
  
**[8:38 PM] Dooku:**  That's fine. I've been reading up, trying to get caught up.  
  
**[8:41 PM] Dooku:**  ...oh my.  
  
**[8:42 PM] Sören:**  hm?  
  
**[8:43 PM] Dooku:**  That is  _quite interesting_ , about Frankie being a distant relative of yours.  
  
**[8:43 PM] Dooku:**  The Force was with both of you in London, clearly.  
  
**[8:43 PM] Sören:**  Clearly.  
  
**[8:43 PM] Dooku:**  This research that Dagnýr is doing... well...  
  
**[8:44 PM] Dooku:**  As you know, I come from Romanian nobility. I would be a count if I was still living there.  
  
**[8:44 PM] Dooku:**  Even though I was born and raised in the UK, my parents were very proud of their heritage and I grew up with a strong sense of that identity, even wanted to be an Orthodox priest for a time.  
  
**[8:47 PM] Dooku:**  My connection to that heritage, visiting Romania, speaking the language... it's why Bolli Ornasson asked me to have a hand in Leja and her brother Lúkas's life, when he was at Oxford with me, because he and his wife had adopted them from a deceased Romanian countess.  
  
**[8:48 PM] Dooku:**  This is all a roundabout way of me leading up to...  
  
**[8:49 PM] Dooku:**  There is a legend in my own family, that we are descended from Iele. I didn't bring it up before now because of course it seemed like silly "nonsense" once upon a time.  
  
**[8:50 PM] Dooku:**  Iele are... not quite the same as Icelandic elves, but not entirely dissimilar, either. A bit like nymphs, known for seducing men.  
  
**[8:51 PM] Dooku:**  It makes me wonder if all the "nonsense" about an Iele seducing a male ancestor of mine, and leave a "changeling" behind when she went back to the forest... wasn't nonsense after all.  
  
**[8:53 PM] Dooku:**  @Dagnýr thoughts?  
  
**[8:54 PM] Dagnýr:**  hi hi I'm on mobile  
  
**[8:55 PM] Sören:**   ~~hi on mobile~~  
  
**[8:56 PM] Dagnýr:**  :knife: gimme a moment to get on my laptop  
  
**[9:11 PM] Dagnýr:**  OK hi @Dooku - There is a greater than zero chance that the Iele legend has some veracity to it, sure.  
  
**[9:13 PM] Dagnýr:**  It might however be a lot harder for you to research, depending on how far back it is, compared to the amount of records kept in Iceland. I don't know what the situation is like in Romanian noble families with keeping pedigrees and all of that.  
  
**[9:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  The research I'm doing, it's not simply when in time the elf blood supposedly entered the lineage, but I want to know if there was anything particularly notable about this individual and their immediate descendant/s, and how much this spread out across generations, so I'm poking at every record I can to see if there were any reports of "eccentricity" or something else that would be an indicator they weren't normal and were "touched" in some way.  
  
**[9:17 PM] Dagnýr:**  So to be really scientific about it, you'd have to do some extensive digging and that gets time consuming. Hell, I'm a scientist and I've spent more time doing research on this shit than is sane, and I'm not even out of the 19th century yet.  
  
**[9:19 PM] Dagnýr:**  I say this not to discourage you! By all means, if you poke around, I'd be very interested in comparing notes with you, because it's relevant to my own research as well, trying to show some kind of evidence that humanity has been visited by non-humans.  
  
**[9:22 PM] Dooku:**  All right. Thank you for your input. I wouldn't attempt the project now, when I've got this novel to work on, but when it's finished, I may well conduct my own research. Who knows, it might give me inspiration for another novel.  
  
**[9:24 PM] Dagnýr:**  :thumbs_up:  
  
  
"So that was longer than a few minutes, my apologies," Dooku said, looking up.  
  
"It's all right." Sören patted him. "Enough people voted on music classes that I need to find an instructor, and Van reminded me Alejandro lives up the street. In front of the entire goddamn class, so there was no way I could say no to them." He facepalmed.  
  
"Oh, I think that would be splendid. You should ask him."  
  
"Et tu, Dookus?"  
  
Dooku rolled his eyes. "I'll forgive your butchering of Latin this one time."  
  
"OK, Biggus Dickus Maximus."  
  
Dooku bitchfaced, and Sören kissed the tip of his nose. Then Dooku laughed too, putting down his laptop and putting his arms around Sören. "You silly thing," he said, raining kisses over Sören's curls.  
  
"I just..." Sören sighed. "I'm not really ready yet to..."  
  
"I know. But you can't avoid him all summer."  
  
Sören looked up at him. "No. And I won't. I just need more time." He kissed Dooku's nose again. "In the meantime, we should relax, já?"  
  
"We should."  
  
Sören stood up, took Dooku's hands, pulled him to his feet, and led him to the bed. They undressed each other, and climbed onto the bed together. After a few minutes of hungry kissing, caressing, they got into position for a sixty-nine, taking each other's hands as they sucked and rimmed each other, at last coming together, rising up to kiss with their mouths full of each other's cum, savoring the way they tasted together.  
  
They curled up then, and it didn't take long for them to get to sleep, lulled by the soft fall of rain outside.  
  
_  
  
  
After the evening rain, the day of the summer solstice was bright and sunny. In the morning Dooku ran to the supermarket to pick up some things for them to have a picnic, and then Sören drove them to the Goðafoss, which was a half-hour drive.  
  
Sören had first taken Dooku here on their trip to Iceland in November 2017, where the aurora borealis had glowed over the waterfall, and Dooku had described the place as a "Force Nexus", putting into simple words the power Sören had sensed there since he was a child, but never knew how to quantify it. When Sören learned how to drive at age sixteen, he would frequently drive out to the Goðafoss year-round, any season, any weather, day or night, and just sit by the waterfall, the endless flowing of the fall - even in winter, when the rest of the land was frozen - a reminder that life always went on, somehow.  
  
Historically, the Goðafoss had been the place where the lawspeaker Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði had thrown his idols of the Norse gods, officially converting Iceland to Christianity. A window in Akureyrarkirkja illustrated this story. The Goðafoss thus also seemed to have a liminal quality to it, a place for endings and beginnings, the energy of change, one chapter of life ending and another beginning. Sören and Margrét had stopped at the falls on their way out of Akureyri in 2006, when Sören drove up from Reykjavik to rescue Margrét from the death threat of their uncle Einar; he was twenty-two then, and it felt almost like a lifetime ago. Sören and Margrét had each thrown a 1  _krónur_  coin into the fall, their last action in Akureyri, before driving down to Reykjavik. Sören had thrown a 1  _krónur_  coin into the fall when he drove into Akureyri in April 2018, returning there to live for the first time in twelve years, to start his life over again, opening up Logifugl Listaskóli, living in his paternal grandfather's cabin with Snúdur.  
  
As Sören got out of the jeep and Dooku spread a blanket down on the ground, and lay the picnic basket down on top of it, Sören felt a weight on his shoulders, the same weight he had felt the days he threw the coin into the falls. The same sense of  _something is happening_.  
  
The dampness from the previous night's rain still lingered on the grass, and a rainbow shone in the falls.  
  
Sören and Dooku ate - sandwiches, sliced cheese, smoked herring, shrimp, fruit, little pastries. They snuggled together after they ate, and when they were ready they got up to walk around the falls, and stood at the edge, looking over, with Dooku standing behind Sören, holding him, Sören's hands on his arms, rubbing gently.  
  
Sören tilted his face.  _It's time._  "Nico," he said. "I need to talk to you about something."  
  
The last time either of them had said "we need to talk" was in February 2018, and that had been their breakup. Dooku let go, stepped back, and Sören turned around to his side, so he could look at the falls over one shoulder, and Dooku over the other.  
  
Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls, took a deep breath, and folded his arms. "OK. Here goes. When Van was at my studio yesterday, we... flirted a bit." Sören looked over at Dooku, who registered no reaction - waiting to hear the entire case, as the barrister he had been most of his life.  
  
"Nothing happened," Sören said, "well... he stole a little kiss at the end, but he said, I quote, 'If your husband were willing to let you play, I'd like a repeat of that night we spent together.'"  
  
Again, no reaction from Dooku. He was still waiting, knowing Sören had more to say.  
  
"So here's the thing," Sören said. "Four years later, I'm still very attracted to Van. He's..." Sören made a vague hand gesture. "You've seen him. He's gorgeous. And it isn't just physical - he was good to me, that night, he made me feel cared about during a time when I felt bloody awful. He's been very kind to me since he showed up here, and he's kind to Alejandro. It's hard for that feeling to not be mutual. So... I told him I would ask you about it."  
  
Dooku raised an eyebrow, but that was his only reaction, still.  
  
Sören continued. "This... does not change how I feel about you." He walked towards Dooku then, put one hand on Dooku's heart, and stroked his face with the other. "I still love you. I still want you. I wouldn't be  _replacing_ you with him. To make a really crass analogy... it's like you're home cooking, and playing with him would be eating out." Sören felt the smirk on his face, though he had been trying to behave. "I don't want to eat out every single night. But I... if you were willing, I'd like to do this, and I thought it was better I tell you, be honest with you, ask permission, than go behind your back. I don't ever, ever want to hurt you, Nico. I love you so, so much."  
  
Dooku's hand clasped over Sören's hand on his heart. He still said nothing, but that touch was reassuring.  
  
"So." Sören took a deep breath. "There's that. And if you gave me permission to play with him... and I did... I'd, ah." He gave a wicked grin. "I'd let you have your way with me the next night." He leaned in and husked, "It's been awhile since you tied me up. I'd love it if you punished me for being a naughty boy."  
  
Dooku's eyes widened, and across their Force bond, Sören could see the mental images dancing across his head, binding Sören's wrists as he'd done on Valentine's Day, teasing him, making him beg for it.  
  
Sören felt emboldened, naughtier. "Maybe you could watch, sometime. Back in the days when I used to have more casual sex, I thought it was hot to watch my partner doing things with another person - it gave me a different view, like porn, almost." He stroked Dooku's beard. "And quid pro quo is only fair - if there was ever anyone you felt like shagging, just ask me first. It would be hot to see you get it on with another hot guy."  
  
Dooku blushed.  
  
"And," Sören said, "I'd play it safe, of course. In my wild party days I still insisted on protection and getting tested. I don't plan on being anywhere near as wild as I was then - this isn't for all the time, and I'd rather know someone before I shag them, these days. But I don't want to put you at risk, so I'd only bareback with you unless I had proof Van was clean, and..."  
  
Dooku nodded, and put a hand on Sören's shoulder. "All right."  
  
"All right?" Sören's eyebrows shot up. "So that's a yes...?"  
  
"I'll admit this wasn't what I thought would happen when we got together, when I married you, but... it's better to bend than to break."  
  
"You're not angry that I asked?"  
  
"I'm taken aback, but I'm not angry. I... shall adjust." Dooku leaned in and kissed Sören's cheek. Their eyes met. "I appreciate your honesty."  
  
"It's like I said. I don't ever want to hurt you, Nico." Sören took his hands, and kissed them, his heart overflowing with gratitude and love. "And I mean..." He bit his lower lip. "This could make things fun. Not that I had any complaints about our sex life before, but I mean what I say when I want you to take control of me when I come back from playing."  
  
"That could indeed be enjoyable." Dooku smiled, and there was a predatory look in his eyes that made Sören want to pounce him right there, but he restrained himself.  
  
They walked around some more, and finally they got back in the jeep for the drive home. They were quiet, and then at the halfway point, Dooku said, "You know, to be honest with you..."  
  
Sören looked over at him and made the "go on" gesture.  
  
Dooku took a deep breath. "I've been having the same concerns about my age again."  
  
"Oh god, please don't give me that 'too old' shit. I told you I'm not replacing you -"  
  
Dooku waved his hand dismissively. "That's not it, Sören." He went on. "But we have to face facts - I may be in good health for almost seventy-one, but I am not going to live forever, and even if I have another twenty years... how many of those years will I be able to, well,  _perform_? Meanwhile, you are young yet, and have... needs. I have been feeling guilty about the eventuality of not being able to fulfill those needs. This provides a rather elegant solution to that problem."  
  
Sören sighed. He really hated this subject - the thought of losing Dooku eventually made him want to tear his heart out and scream.  _I wish you could stay with me forever._  "I suppose."  
  
"It will be difficult enough for you when the end comes, never mind being frustrated and pent-up constantly, and I know art is a coping mechanism for you and know how closely your sexuality is tied to your creativity. I don't want you to be so... blocked up... when..." Dooku didn't finish the sentence, his voice choking up. "I don't want you to end up taking your life when I'm gone, Sören, and I worry about that a lot."  
  
"Nico." Sören pulled over, and buried his face in his hands. "Dammit, Nico..."  
  
Dooku reached over to hug Sören, as best as he could with the layout of the jeep and Sören's steering wheel in the way. "I didn't want to upset you,  _elskan_. But we have to be practical about things." He took Sören's chin in his hand, and gave him a soft, gentle kiss. "If you found a lover... you wouldn't have to endure the end alone."  
  
Sören let out a few more sobs, leaning on Dooku. "Fuck," was all he could choke out.  
  
Dooku's own eyes were too bright with unshed tears. "I love you."  
  
"I know." Sören patted him. "That's so fucking... unselfish of you."  
  
"I would rather share you than lose you. And... well... I don't intend to go just yet, and one thing you've shown me over the last year and a half is that an old dog can learn new tricks. I'm open to seeing where this arrangement goes. You and Van are both attractive men, yes, and the thought of you together is rather... stimulating... though I'm not yet comfortable enough with him to ask to watch or, er."  
  
Sören nodded. "I get it." He leered. "Maybe I could get pictures or video."  
  
"Oh, dear  _Force._ " Dooku chuckled. "You  _are_  a naughty boy."  
  
Before they went home, Sören stopped at the pet store, to buy the high quality, expensive pet food he got for Snúdur, because that was the closest thing Sören would ever have to a child and he wanted to make sure he ate properly. Dooku sat in the jeep - Sören knew he was going to take a few minutes to cry, privately; he still had a hard time crying in front of other people, even though he'd done so in front of Sören before.  
  
Sören went into the pet store by himself, going down the usual aisle, and when he passed by the collars and leashes, a lightbulb went off in his head.  
  
He walked backwards, pausing in front of the dog collars. He picked one up that looked like it might fit - black leather - and tried it on. He clipped a matching leash through it, and hoped that nobody would see him doing this, but  _god, I want Nico to make me wear this for a night after I shag Van._  Heat flooded his cheeks.  _I want Van to make me wear this, too. The leash of who gets to own me for the night._  
  
When Sören was ready to check out, he brought the bag of dry food, a case of wet food, and the leash and collar to the counter. The saleswoman remarked, "This is for dogs and you're buying cat food."  
  
"Jæja, I'm picking it up for a neighbor," Sören said, a half-truth.  
  
Bringing the cart out to the jeep, Sören tried very hard to keep the mischievous grin off his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of Sören rescuing Margrét from Einar is told in the one-shot _[Sun Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18327341)_.
> 
> Frankie briefly mentions the great-great-grandfather in the one-shot _[The Sound of Sinners](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18402869)_ , which includes the story of how she and Sören meet in London.


	17. The Rhythm Of The Heat

**The Rhythm of the Heat**

 

After the trip to the Goðafoss, Dooku and Sören had a few hours to kill before the solstice party at the studio, which would be starting at 5 PM. Dooku's cell rang - Alejandro, wanting to see if Dooku was available to go on a walk with Auli.  
  
"I'll be back before it's time to leave," Dooku said, giving Sören a kiss. He paused. "Would you like me to ask him about the music class...?"  
  
Sören shook his head. "It's something I'd rather bring up with him myself, if you don't mind."  
  
"I don't mind." Dooku patted him. "When are you planning on having that conversation with him?"  
  
Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. He took a moment to consider - he was working this weekend, and would probably need time to recover on Saturday if he was out late tonight with the solstice party. "Tell him to come by the studio after my classes are done on Sunday - I'll be free by 4 PM. You can just tell him I want to talk to him about something."  
  
"OK." Dooku blew him a kiss at the door. "Have fun."  
  
"You too."  
  
Sören logged onto the family chat server, and opened up private messaging with his sister.  
  
  
**[2:39 PM] Sören:**  I know you're not usually up now, or you're just getting up  
  
**[2:40 PM] Sören:**  I wanted to tell you that I had the talk with Nico  
  
**[2:52 PM] Margrét:**  *mumbles through cup of coffee*  
  
**[2:52 PM] Margrét:**  How did it go?  
  
**[2:53 PM] Sören:**  better than I expected  
  
**[2:53 PM] Sören:**  he said yes to me playing with Van  
  
**[2:55 PM] Margrét:**  I didn't think he'd say no, tbh.  
  
**[2:56 PM] Sören:**  well, I'm glad he said yes and that the conversation went well  
  
**[2:57 PM] Sören:**  though, I'm kind of uncomfortable with one of the reasons he said yes, I get it, but it's still... *sigh*  
  
**[2:59 PM] Margrét:**  ?  
  
**[3:02 PM] Sören:**  he went on about his age again, and how he thinks I should find a lover so I'm not alone and having an episode when he dies  
  
**[3:03 PM] Sören:**  and like... I appreciate his concern  
  
**[3:03 PM] Sören:**  I just... I don't want him to go, and I don't want to think about it  
  
**[3:04 PM] Sören:**  I'm still pretty raw and broken up from that  
  
**[3:04 PM] Sören:**  I can't imagine my life without him in it  
  
**[3:06 PM] Margrét:**  He's right, though, and he's trying to look out for you.  
  
**[3:06 PM] Margrét:**  And listen, I'm biased, but  
  
**[3:07 PM] Sören:**   ~~hi biased, I'm Sören~~  
  
**[3:08 PM] Margrét:**  :squint: :knife:  
  
**[3:08 PM] Margrét:**  SÖREN  
  
**[3:08 PM] Margrét:**  BOI I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD  
  
**[3:10 PM] Sören:**  you're fucking a god now?  
  
**[3:10 PM] Sören:**  wow, I'm still waiting to get abducted by elves, hoping I'll get an anal probe.  
  
**[3:13 PM] Margrét:**   ~~I can tell you desperately want to change the subject away from your husband's impending mortality~~  
  
**[3:14 PM] Sören:**  >.>  
  
**[3:15 PM] Margrét:**  ANYWAY AS I WAS SAYING, YOU :knife:  
  
**[3:18 PM] Margrét:**  I may be biased, but I think that even if Dooku was going to be alive forever, you're better off in an (ethical) non-monogamous relationship. Poly isn't necessarily  _easier_  - it's still more partners, which means more development of relationships, more communication skills... but it's rewarding. There's something really beautiful about creating your own chosen family. Survival in a pack. Everyone has their own little niche to fill, and it balances things out.  
  
**[3:22 PM] Margrét:**  I would have honestly given you the poly speech a long time ago, but I didn't want to come off as preachy... though if you were bisexual/pansexual at all, that might have changed my attitude and made me more willing to say something, so you weren't feeling like you were missing out  
  
**[3:23 PM] Sören:**  well yeah I'm mostly gay  
  
**[3:24 PM] Sören:**  but I think I'm, like, a 5 on the Kinsey scale instead of a hard 6  
  
**[3:25 PM] Sören:**  between you and me, there's been a couple girls over the years where I've turned my head. just a couple, but more than zero.  
  
**[3:27 PM] Sören:**  Frankie is one of them, but I've never gone there with her because it would feel kind of wrong, even if you and her weren't involved. she feels too much like my sister.  
  
**[3:28 PM] Sören:**  and there was this one girl I met when I was at university  
  
**[3:28 PM] Sören:**  she was vacationing in Reykjavik, actually  
  
**[3:28 PM] Sören:**  her name was Claire  
  
**[3:28 PM] Sören:**  she was from the UK  
  
**[3:30 PM] Sören:**  strawberry blonde hair, cute as a button  
  
**[3:33 PM] Sören:**  we hung out a bit for the month she was on vacation, I would have experimented if I wasn't so shy and didn't think I'd get some kind of shit for being like "so I'm mostly into dudes and that's never going to change, but hey, can I eat you out and see what it's like", so I never said anything to her about my interest  
  
**[3:34 PM] Margrét:**  *nods*  
  
**[3:34 PM] Margrét:**  Understandable.  
  
**[3:36 PM] Sören:**  I still think about her from time to time. I really regret that we didn't keep in touch, but right after she went back is when my internship started and I got busy and then things, well  
  
**[3:37 PM] Sören:**  you know  
  
**[3:37 PM] Sören:**  *dying whale noises*  
  
**[3:38 PM] Margrét:**  You could look her up, maybe?  
  
**[3:39 PM] Sören:**  LMAO like I don't have enough blasts from the past hanging around  
  
**[3:40 PM] Margrét:**  better to kill all the birds with one stone, and all that  
  
**[3:42 PM] Margrét:**  anyway, I have to run some errands like an adult, so have fun at your party tonight  
  
**[3:42 PM] Margrét:**  PS, Kol says happy summer solstice  
  
**[3:43 PM] Sören:**  aw, same to him  
  
**[3:43 PM] Sören:**  <3  
  
  
Sören took a deep breath, and rubbed his face. The impulse overcame him, and he typed the relevant details into Google.  _Let's see where this rabbit hole leads to._  If nothing else, he would have liked to have her as a friend. He didn't have many friends.  
  
His face fell when the results came back. Claire James had committed suicide in London,  _the exact same week_ that Sören had attempted suicide in the village in western Iceland where he'd had his med school clerkship.  
  
_Oh Claire._  He closed his eyes, feeling the tears come on. He choked back a sob, and then it roared out of him. He collapsed onto the couch, shaking, screaming into the couch pillows. It wasn't simply that she'd taken her own life - such a bright light, gone out of the world - but  _the same fucking week I tried to end mine._  What were the odds of that?  _Maybe if we'd kept in touch, she'd still be alive, maybe..._  
  
He sat up and looked at the photo attached to her obituary, the beautiful girl he remembered, though she had been dyeing her hair platinum blonde instead of the natural rose-gold he'd seen her with in Reykjavik, and she had lost weight, already thin to begin with. Even though he knew it would leave a mark and had to be cleaned, he found himself touching the picture on the screen of his laptop.  
  
And then in his mind's eye, a flash of images. A crossroads of four roads.   
  
The first road... Sören reliving his suicide attempt. Then seeing Claire's final moments, overdosing.   
  
And then on the next road... they were in London, Sören recognized the landmarks from when he was living there in 2015-2017, except he hadn't known her when he lived there... not here. But on this road, this world... He never killed Einar. His path never crossed with Alejandro's, he moved to London to get away after Einar killed Margrét. He saw himself with Justin, abused again, and Claire trying to talk him out of the relationship, professing her own feelings for him... the two of them making love for the first and only time, sensual, passionate lovemaking for hours, Sören tasting her, inside her, bringing her to climax over and over again. And when Claire had gone home and Justin had shown up to try to convince Sören to come back, and Sören wouldn't have it, ready to be with someone who really cared about him, Justin beat him to death, dropped his body in the Thames. Claire was a wreck, already pushed to the breaking point before this. There was Alejandro, playing a piano, except his name wasn't Alejandro...? Claire heard his music... and then Sören was shoved out of that world to the third road.  
  
A highway sign that said WELCOME TO CORVALLIS. Trees everywhere, so green. Sören wearing glasses, zero gauge plugs in his ears, teaching art at a university in the States, a long way from home. Claire his assistant. Kissing their way into a supply closet, Sören talking dirty to her in Icelandic between kisses.  _Ég vil sleikja þig um allt. Ég vil að safarnir þínar dreypi._  Sören on his knees before her, hiking up her skirt, yanking her panties down with his teeth, looking up at her, meeting her eyes, as he took his first lick, ate at her with abandon. Fists in his curls, her knees quivering, a sob bubbling out.  _Sören, you're going to make me come - FUCK!_  Sören growling with triumph as he watched and felt her contracting, taking a few last slow licks as she moaned and trembled, leaning against the wall to steady herself.  
  
"Alejandro" wearing wire-rimmed glasses, playing Metallica  _on a harp_  on a stage... standing with Sören on a beach, sunset, long dark mane stirring in the wind. Getting down on one knee in the sand...  
  
There was more to see on the third road, and the fourth road was entirely unexplored, but Sören slammed it shut. This was already too much,  _too much..._  He came back to himself with a gasp.  
  
_What the fuck did I just see._  Sören's hands were shaking. It was a warm day, and he felt like he was made of ice.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören was quiet as he and Dooku drove to the studio in Akureyri. Sören knew Dooku could tell something had upset him while he was out on his walk with Alejandro, but Dooku was wise enough not to probe.  
  
Not yet.  _Hopefully not for awhile._  He had shoved those mental images aside - hoping he'd forget about them. Even if he didn't forget, he was nowhere near ready to unpack and try to figure out what it was he saw, and why.  
  
Sören managed to pull himself together for the sake of his students, smiling as he and Dooku climbed out of the jeep. Dooku had made Romanian stuffed cabbage for the potluck. The picnic tables were set up with a variety of salads, casseroles, and appetizers, and some of the students had brought fresh fish and meat to throw on the grill. Van had brought a decadent-looking strawberry-topped cake. Sören raised an eyebrow at the strawberries, remembering the heavy flirting at the studio yesterday.  
  
Van mimed a kiss.  
  
_Fucking hell._  Sören's cock was already starting to stir again.  _That's one way of getting my mind off things._  
  
"Thank you all for coming," Sören said. "It's time to party Viking style!" He held up the long reach lighter he'd brought with him, and did the honors of lighting the fire in the pit prepared for it, and then starting the grill.  
  
Someone had brought a portable stereo, and people were taking turns with the music. The evening started off with metal; Dooku smiled approvingly.  
  
Meat and fish was grilled, with Sören and Dooku grilling together, and sometimes they got help from the guests. When the first round was ready, Dooku brought it over to be served, and Sören and a couple guests threw the next batch on.  
  
Sören manned the grill for all four batches, and only when everything was all cooked was he ready to take any food of his own. There was still plenty, and Sören had a little bit of everything, grazing. The students were in various cliques across the grass, which was normal, but there was still interaction between them, sharing drink, commenting on music.  
  
Sören sat by the fire, sipping Brennivín as he let his food digest, leaning against Dooku. Dooku pet him.  
  
"Are you feeling a little better?" Dooku asked softly, planting a kiss in Sören's curls.  
  
"A little."  
  
Dooku took Sören's chin in his hand and looked into his eyes. "Something is still bothering you."  
  
Sören looked away. He didn't know how to explain Claire, and what he'd seen... and that there was still more to see.  
  
Dooku gently rubbed Sören's knee. He moved in closer and said, "I'm going to be retiring early tonight, Alejandro invited me to go hiking with him tomorrow morning and I want to make sure I get adequate rest."  
  
"Oh. OK."  
  
"I don't expect you to leave when I do, I can get a ride back." Dooku stroked Sören's face again. "If you want to... spend time with Van tonight, I won't object."  
  
Sören's jaw dropped.  _This soon?_  "You sure?"  
  
"Yes." Dooku's eyes twinkled. "Tomorrow night, when I have all the endorphins going from the hike... you're mine."  
  
"Oh,  _myyyyy._ " Sören's cock stirred again. Across the yard, his eyes met Van's, who was watching them quietly. He looked back at Dooku. "Only if it's all right..."  
  
"I wouldn't have said it was all right, if it wasn't all right. Have fun." He poked Sören. "Don't be so serious."  
  
"Wow, when  _you_  of all people are telling me to be less serious..." He cackled and kissed the tip of Dooku's nose.  
  
The music on the stereo changed from metal to electronic. Sören recognized Machinedrum.  _Free your arse, and the rest will follow,_  Sören told himself, irresistibly drawn to the complex rhythm. He patted Dooku, got up, and moved out to start dancing, not caring if he looked like an idiot dancing by himself.  
  
It wasn't long before Van joined him and they were dancing together... like they had that night four years ago. Except they weren't under the strobe lights of a club, they were here in the open air, under the glow of the midnight sun, a bonfire burning nearby. Something primal in him awakened, as if he were channeling ancient sun worship rites. Someone had brought a torch, and he grabbed it, lit it from the bonfire, and began to dance with it, passing it from hand to hand like it was a glowstick.  
  
Other people were getting up to dance now. Sören continued dancing with the fire, aware he was getting some concerned looks about playing with fire, but he wasn't afraid.  _I am fire._  
  
The proximity of the flame, and the bonfire, was making him sweat. Sören passed the torch to Van, pulled off his T-shirt, and flung it across the yard at Dooku, who blushed as he took it. Sören grabbed the torch back, and then he watched with a smile as Van removed his own shirt -  _fuck, he's hot_  - and Van accepted a torch passed by one of the students, lighting it.  
  
The two were dancing with flame now, and soon two torches became four, like they were performing in a carnival, even though Sören had never been formally trained as a fire spinner, he intuitively knew what he was doing and it seemed Van did as well. Sören lost himself in the music, the rhythm, the gorgeous sight of Van's body moving, wanting to touch him, but not wanting to make a scene, and his hands were full besides.  _Later, I will touch you with my own fire._  
  
They danced and danced. The troublesome visions were far away now.  _I am here. I am alive._  Sören's eyes scouted for Dooku, who had been watching him admiringly...  _just you wait till tomorrow night..._  and now Dooku was on his cell talking to someone. Sören wondered who.  
  
Sören had opened the studio so people could use the bathroom if they needed it, and Sören himself now needed to use the bathroom. When he came out, he had an idea. He took a bottle of skin-safe red paint from the children's art supplies, making a mental note to replace it later, and poured into a paper cup.  
  
Van was waiting for him, stealing a kiss in the hall. Sören had to restrain himself from slamming Van up against the wall and getting on his cock right then and there - this wasn't the time and the place, with probable detection by his guests, and the night was too young. Sören took his hand and they went back outside.  
  
"You haven't tried the cake I brought," Van said, a mock hurt tone of voice.  
  
"No, I have not. It looks delicious."  _Not as delicious as you._  
  
Van cut him a piece of cake, and then he pulled off one of the strawberries and fed it to Sören from his fingers. Sören sucked his fingers, their eyes locked.  
  
Dooku was watching them, the look on his face one best described as "intrigued". Feeling bold - not caring what people would think of what he was about to do - Sören gestured for Dooku to come over, and when he did, Sören took a strawberry off the cake and put it in Dooku's mouth. Dooku made a little growling noise as he sucked Sören's fingers.  
  
Sören leaned in and lapped strawberry juices from his mouth, his chin, and gave him a passionate kiss. Then Sören moved closer to Van and kissed Van as well, with Dooku watching the kiss.  
  
"Are you quite sure you don't want to watch tonight?" Sören asked him.  
  
"Perhaps another time." Sören could feel Dooku's shyness across their Force bond, and there was something else holding him back, but not even Dooku knew what it was.  
  
_Huh._  
  
Sören finished his piece of cake; Dooku then put a hand on Sören's shoulder, and a hand on Van's shoulder. "Take good care of him tonight," Dooku told Van.  
  
"I will," Van said.  
  
Before Sören and Van could reclaim the torches, Sören gestured to the red paint he'd brought out. As if on cue, the music on the stereo changed from electronic to something with more natural instruments - it sounded like Dead Can Dance. Sören dipped two fingers in the paint and made a stripe from the center of his forehead down to his chin, as if he were attending an ancient blood sacrifice and painting himself with the offering. He drew runes on his arms, his chest. Then with more paint on his fingers, he marked Van, stripes across his face, runes on his chest, his back.  
  
They grabbed the torches and headed off to dance once more. They moved closer together, their dancing more sexual, grinding up on each other, face to face, one behind the other. Spinning the flames, like a magic circle around them.  
  
Peter Gabriel's voice cried out to the sun.  
  
_Drawn across the plainland  
To the place that is higher  
Drawn into the circle  
That dances round the fire  
We spit into out hands  
And breathe across the palms  
Raising them up high  
Held open to the sun  
Self-conscious, uncertain  
I'm showered with the dust  
The spirit enters into me  
And I submit to trust_  
  
Their eyes met, a deep understanding between them. They still knew little about each other, but Sören felt that same  _I-can-trust-you-with-my-life_  feeling he'd felt that night four years ago, when he'd let Van, a random stranger, bind him. They had the same fire, deep inside, and tonight, fire was calling fire.  
  
When "The Rhythm of the Heat" was over, the stereo played "If I Had A Heart" by Fever Ray. They were dancing more slowly now, turning circles around each other.  
  
_This will never end 'cause I want more  
More, give me more  
Give me more  
  
If I had a heart I could love you  
If I had a voice I would sing  
After the night when I wake up  
I'll see what tomorrow brings  
  
Ah ah, ah ah  
Ah ah, ah ah  
Ah ah, ah ah  
If I had a voice, I would sing_  
  
Suddenly Sören felt someone staring at him, and he looked and saw Alejandro's Jaguar, and Dooku walking towards for his ride home. Alejandro was watching Sören and Van dance, a murderous intensity in his gaze that made Sören stop for a moment, and then Sören shot him a wicked grin before turning around, playfully shaking his ass as he leaned in to steal a kiss from Van.  
  
_Crushed and filled with all I found  
Underneath and inside   
Just to come around  
More, give me more, give me more_  
  
  
_  
  
Last year Sören had stayed with his guests until 2 AM, and his original plan was to stay until at least midnight, but he didn't make it anywhere near that long. He was too pent up.  
  
After bidding good night to the students who would be staying behind to party some more, Sören and Van walked to their respective vehicles; Van was wrapped in a towel to not stain the Bentley. Before Sören could say anything about feeling awkward about going back to the cottage with him, after the look on Alejandro's face, Van said, "I have a room reserved at the Hotel Akureyri."  
  
Sören pursed his lips. "Oh, do you."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"So you were assuming I'd be with you tonight."  
  
"More like hoping." Van laughed softly.  
  
Sören followed Van's car to the hotel. Once they got in and Van had checked in, he marched Sören along quickly, and as soon as they were on their way to Van's room, they started kissing, hungry, hands roaming over each other. Van was already undoing Sören's jeans.  
  
It didn't take long for them to get completely naked, clothes haphazardly strewn across the floor. They kissed even more passionately now, hard cocks rubbing together; Van took them both into his fist, stroking slowly, his free hand playing with Sören's curls.  
  
Van started walking them towards the bed, and then Sören said, "Wait a minute. I need to, um..." He gave a little cough. "Prepare myself."  
  
He went into the bathroom to do his usual cleaning out for bottoming, and he noticed a contact lens kit, marked as waterproof, closed, with contact lens solution. He found that curious. When he came out, Van asked, "Would you like to shower with me?"  
  
"Mmmm, yes."  
  
Underneath the hot, steaming water, they lathered each other sensually, washing off the paint - Sören would have felt self-conscious about painting the both of them now, like a big kid, if it hadn't felt right to do in some way, like an almost magical act even though Sören wasn't into any of that. Sören purred as Van massaged his scalp, kissing his neck as he did. Sören liked playing with Van's long hair as he shampooed him, and he couldn't get enough of kissing those sweet, full lips, their tongues swirling together, hard cocks rubbing once more. Sören was already leaking precum by the time the shower was done, and Van playfully got to his knees to lap it, making Sören clutch at him, moaning. When Van turned Sören around and dipped his tongue into Sören's opening, eating him slowly, Sören had to lean against the shower wall to not fall over.  
  
Van helped him out of the shower, laughing at the way Sören was already trembling, whimpering, begging for it and they'd only just begun. Sören glanced at the contact kit again. "You wear contacts?"  
  
"I'm near-sighted."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. Then he said, "You'd look sexy in glasses." He stroked Van's face. "You'd look sexy in anything." He nipped Van's lower lip. "You'd look sexiest covered in my cum."  
  
Van kissed him again, pushing him onto the bed.  
  
A few kisses later, Van sat up. "I have something to show you," he said.  
  
Sören lay there, propped up on one elbow, an eyebrow raised. Van reached for a briefcase near the bed, opened it, and pulled out a set of papers stapled together. It was a battery of tests from a doctor's office, rather recent.  
  
"I'm negative for everything," Van said, "and I've only been with Alejandro recently... and I can vouch that I'm the only person he's been with since you."  
  
There was a weight to those words - Sören thought about all of the people he'd fucked in the five years since the breakup, most of those within the first year, self-medicating with empty, meaningless sex. And Alejandro had been the opposite, near-celibate.  
  
_In case you needed proof other than him showing up, that he's still hung up on you._  
  
Sören didn't like the  _good_  reaction in the back of his head, that he didn't really  _want_  Alejandro being touched by other people, like nobody else was good enough for the sensitive, gentle musician.  _I wouldn't want him broken the way I was broken._  He didn't like his possessiveness - Alejandro was touch-starved, was he not? why was it OK for him to move on with his life, and not OK for Alejandro to be with others? - but there it was.  
  
It also made him intensely curious about the marriage he claimed he was supposed to go through, and clearly was not in now. If he'd ever been.  
  
_If there'd ever even been an arranged marriage ordered by his family in the first place, and he wasn't leaving for some other reason._    
  
Sören shoved those thoughts to the side; this was not the time or place.  
  
"I do have condoms if you prefer to use them," Van said, "your safety and comfort comes first. But if you'd rather feel skin on skin..."  
  
Sören's response was to push Van onto his back, kissing him like his life depended on it. After some more deep, hungry kissing, pulling apart for air, Sören looked into his eyes, pet his hair, stroked his cheek. "I'd like to feel you come inside me," Sören husked. "But first..." He kissed Van again. "You took such good care of me, that night when I was hurting." Sören's fingers trailed down from Van's face, over his heart. "Tonight, I want to make love to you, too."  
  
Sören claimed his mouth again, kissed his neck, kissed his way down to Van's chest, licked and sucked his nipples, loving the way he moaned and arched to him, fists in Sören's curls. Sören nibbled them, licked some more, alternating between fast and slow strokes of his tongue, suckled hard, rubbed one nipple with his thumb and index finger as he worked on the other. Then his kisses rained over Van's sculpted stomach, tongue licking the muscle definition, cock throbbing as he heard Van moan some more. He kissed and nibbled Van's thighs, licked them, and at last his attention turned to Van's cock, now leaking precum. Looking into his eyes, he swallowed him down, slowly, and sucked very, very slowly, teasing him. Sören swirled his tongue as he sucked, cock continuing to twinge at the sounds Van was making. He loved this, worshiping Van's body, the delicious cock that had given him so much pleasure that night.  _I could do this to you every night, if I could clone myself to also be with my husband,_  Sören thought to himself. He felt greedy, wanton, and that just excited him even more.  
  
He  _hungered._  
  
He thought of his sister's words about polyamory -  _There's something really beautiful about creating your own chosen family. Survival in a pack. Everyone has their own little niche to fill, and it balances things out._  
  
_It isn't just that, dear sister._  Sören was realizing that now, as he feasted on this gorgeous man.  _I have too much passion, too much_  fire  _to be with just one person._  
  
Van moaned and it was beautiful to him, making him crave more of that same response.  _Let me adore you._  
  
Sören's hand was gently cupping and rubbing Van's balls, sucking a little harder and faster, focusing more on the head. With his free hand, he wet a finger with his own leaking precum, and pushed his precum-slick finger into Van's opening. He found the prostate right away, and the way Van bucked up against him, crying out, was oh so good.  
  
Sören's finger slowly moved in and out of him as he kept sucking, lapping his tongue as he sucked. "Mmmmmm," Sören hummed.  
  
He sucked and sucked, slowly, teasing, making Van arch, pant, gasp, grabbing Sören's curls, shaking. Sören felt his balls tightening, tasted precum flowing, and when he had a mouthful of it, knowing Van was getting close, he stopped, and gave a few teasing licks to the head of Van's cock.  
  
Then he pushed his tongue into Van's channel, licking as slowly as he sucked. The way Van moaned... Sören shivered, loving it. He ate at him as slowly as he could, keeping control as much as he wanted to devour, until Van's nails were digging into him, almost howling in his pleasure. At last Sören relented, tongue moving like a hurricane, fucking the sweet spot, bringing Van to that edge again, keeping him there.  
  
Before Van could come from Sören's tongue, Sören withdrew, and took a few more teasing licks at the head of Van's cock, rubbing the head against his tongue. "You taste so good," Sören husked.  
  
"You are a naughty boy."  
  
"Mmmhmmm." Sören sucked just the head again, slowly. More licking, and Sören purred, "I want to drink you. So then I can ride you as long as you can stand it."  
  
Van had no objections to that, groaning as Sören took him back in his mouth, moving in for the kill now, sucking faster and harder than before. Sören's fingers slick with his own precum replaced the tongue that had been inside him, rubbing the prostate in slow, lazy circles before moving harder, faster. When Sören felt Van's balls tighten again, he braced himself, rubbing his tongue for all he was worth as he sucked hard, and groaned deeply as Van cried out, " _Sören._  Yes, beauty," filling his mouth with delicious, spicy-sweet cum, so much that some seeped out of the corners of Sören's mouth over his chin down his neck, Sören almost choking on the load in his mouth.  
  
Sören swallowed, and took a few last licks to get what he could, and then came up to kiss Van. "You are the picture of debauchery," Van said, lapping the cum from Sören's face and neck, kissing him back.  
  
"Not yet." Sören booped his nose, and kissed it, grinning.  
  
More kissing and Van was hard again. He rolled Sören onto his back and pinned Sören's wrists with his hands as he kissed, licked and nibbled Sören's neck, and spent a long time on Sören's pierced nipples, playing with the rings with his fingers and tongue, lapping and suckling until Sören's nipples were peaked, throbbing, and Sören was making inhuman noises, rubbing his hard cock against Van's thigh, frantic, desperate for release.  
  
But Van was to lavish the same teasing back at Sören. "I've been wanting to do this to you since before I got here," Van whispered, tongue trailing over Sören's abs, planting little sweet kisses here and there. "Wanting to enjoy every inch of you, all over again."  
  
Sören whined. Van laughed softly, before taking his first lick at the head of Sören's cock.  
  
Van sucked him, then, every now and again taking Sören's cock out of his mouth to lick, tongue playing with the captive bead ring in the head, occasionally tugging it with his teeth. His tongue traced around the sensitive site of the piercing, making Sören gasp and shudder. Van licked and sucked Sören's balls, and then his tongue was in Sören, eating him with abandon, fingers brushing delicately over Sören's cock, thumb rubbing the exquisitely sensitive, prominent frenulum. Sören was getting closer, closer, kept on that edge, almost sobbing in his need, and then at last, with Van's tongue on his prostate, Sören had his first orgasm of the night, screaming as he gave Van a facial and a pearl necklace with the eruption of cum.  
  
Van lapped up the rest, and then moved up to kiss Sören. Sören giggled at the mess he'd made, and licked it off like a playful puppy, before they kissed again. "There," Van said, with a wicked grin, stroking Sören's face. "And now that you've also had an orgasm... you can ride me as long as I can stand it."  
  
"Oh my." Sören smirked as he ran his fingers through Van's hair. "That implies you think I have less stamina than you."  
  
"Most people have less stamina than me. I'm used to it."  
  
"Challenge accepted." Sören nipped Van's lower lip and rolled Van onto his back with a growl.  
  
Van propped himself up against the pillows so he wasn't quite sitting up, but neither was flat on his back. Sören straddled his hips; Van reached for the lube on his bedtable and Sören poured it over his cock, while Van's slick fingers probed inside Sören's still-sensitive channel.  
  
"Oh, that's fucking good," Sören moaned as he found that spot right away, shuddering. "Fuckkkk..."  
  
"It'll feel even better when I'm inside you." His free hand brushed over Sören's chest, fingers walking over the nipple, teasingly circling it. His voice lowered. "No barrier in the way."  
  
"God, please." Sören was panting for it. "Take me..."  
  
Van grabbed Sören's hips, and Sören sank down on his cock slowly. When Van was all the way inside, Sören paused, getting adjusted, and then he began to rock his hips, working his ass slowly.  
  
For awhile Sören rode him just like that, slowly, their hands caressing each other, exploring. When Van leaned up to kiss Sören, and then kiss his neck, kiss his nipples, Sören grabbed his shoulders and rolled his hips a little harder and faster, just enough to get them from the languid haze of sensuality to full heat.  
  
Sören kept riding, and Van reached up to pet Sören's curls, twining them around his fingers. "You are so beautiful," Van husked, his free hand playing over Sören's body, watching him with lust in his eyes. "I love watching you like this, in your glory."  
  
" _You_  are beautiful." Sören's fingers tenderly traced over the bones of Van's features, lingering on his lips. "You are a work of art."  
  
Van took Sören's fingers and kissed them. "To hear that from you is an honor." He kissed the palm of Sören's hand.  
  
Sören's hand wandered to Van's chest, rested on his heart. He sped up his hips, and Van grabbed Sören's ass, cupped it, kneaded. Sören grabbed onto the headboard, riding harder still, until the bed was rocking against the wall, their flesh slapping together, the sound of their moans and cries rising above the deliciously filthy sound of their sex. Sören wanted to ride like this all night, Van's cock hitting his sweet spot over and over again, nothing else mattering but this, sensation,  _passion_... but he needed to come so badly...  
  
They stayed on that edge together until they were both trembling, cries becoming panting gasps, and then their eyes met and Van growled, "Now."  
  
" _Van!_ " Sören let go, coming without his cock touched, erupting over Van's chest and arms, the dark swirls now adorned with white from the pearly cum.  
  
"Sören." Van shuddered, closing his eyes, and Sören let out a wordless cry as he felt the hot cum spend deep inside him, the blast against his throbbing prostate making his orgasm that much more deliciously intense. Sören collapsed onto his chest, shaking from head to toe, toes and fingers curling with every contraction of his release.  
  
Sören was so blissed out from the powerful orgasm that he drifted off. At some point he was vaguely aware of Van getting up and heading to the bathroom - he heard the sink running, something that sounded like a box being snapped open and closed - and Sören blinked sleepily as Van walked out of the bathroom, back towards the bed. Sören's bleary eyes focused on the clock, and saw he'd been passed out for a couple of hours.  
  
"Oh," Sören said. "Wow, it's the middle of the night..."  
  
"We can stay here till morning, not disturb the ones we live with." Van climbed back into bed and took Sören into his arms. Sören rested on his shoulder and found himself falling back asleep.  
  
When Sören came to, he was hard again and so was Van, kissing his neck, his shoulder. "I want you," Van growled.  
  
"Mmmmm, I want  _you_." Sören rolled onto his back, pulling Van on top of him.  
  
Van slipped into him easily, and they rocked together like that, slowly, holding each other's hands, nuzzling and kissing tenderly. It was a beautiful way to wake up, and Sören lost himself in it, the sweet sensuality, the connectedness he felt, fire calling to fire once again, stirring with the dawn, seeming even to glow around them.  
  
Sören realized that in all the times he'd had casual sex over the years, he didn't  _sleep_  with the people he was just there to fuck. Actually  _sleeping_  with somebody required an intimacy that Sören had only shared with four people before - Alejandro, Dooku, (regrettably) the sugar daddy gallery owner from Reykjavik, and later Justin. That list extended to sharing a bed platonically with Frankie, and with his sister, but it wasn't the same.  
  
He'd slept with Van. He'd felt safe enough, trusting enough, to cuddle there in his arms and roll off to the land of dreams.  
  
Van stroked his face, kissed his neck some more. Sören ran his fingers through Van's hair. Their mouths met again, and Sören sighed into the kiss, a sound of contentment.  
  
It went on and on, both of them not able to get enough of the slow, delicious rhythm, but at last the fever overcame them and Van pounded Sören into the mattress, Sören's legs on his shoulders, nails in Van's back, screaming, begging for more. At the moment of climax, their eyes met, and Van bit Sören's neck. Sören sobbed as he came, nails scratching down Van's back, shattering. Van kissed Sören hard, and Sören moaned as he tasted the metallic tang of his own blood.  
  
They got breakfast at the hotel cafe on their way out. "We should do that again," Sören said, smiling.  
  
"We will. Many times."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Maglor was on his way out the door to go hiking with Dooku when Vanimórë finally showed up, practically strutting.  
  
They paused for a moment, staring at each other by the front door. Even if Maglor hadn't already seen what he'd seen last night and put two and two together, he could  _feel_  Sören's energy all over Vanimórë, as if Vanimórë had been kissed by fire itself.  
  
Maglor backhanded him. Auli gave a little whine before Maglor pulled the leash, the sheepdog trotting with him as he stormed out.  
  
He heard Vanimórë's voice in his head as he raged down the street. One word:  
  
_Good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Van actually can't get STDs or HIV. He wore a condom during that night in 2015 for Sören's comfort. The medical report he has to "prove" he's clean to Sören, was forged! The lengths that he will go to, to get what he wants...
> 
> -Van also isn't near-sighted - the contacts are dark-colored to hide the unnatural violet of his eyes, since Sören isn't ready to see that yet. His contacts only work for four hours, and then he has to put new ones in.
> 
> -The vision Sören had of Corvallis, Oregon is [the _New Dawn_ 'verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1332257)! He hasn't seen everything he needs to see from there yet, or anything of the "fourth road" where his path crosses Claire's.


	18. Tabula Rasa

**Tabula Rasa**

 

When Maglor arrived in front of Dooku and Sören's cabin, Auli in tow, the door was ajar and Maglor saw Dooku and Sören standing there, arms around each other, mouths caught in a deep, passionate kiss.  
  
It was like adding insult to injury... or would have been, if the two of them were not so beautiful together. The thought of Sören and Vanimórë was arousing, Maglor would grudgingly admit to himself, but this went beyond mere physical lust, though there was that as well. When Sören and Dooku pulled apart for air, looking into each other's eyes, smiling at each other adoringly, the  _love_  they felt for each other was palpable in that gaze, their body language. They were at home with each other, made more beautiful to watch with what Maglor knew of Sören's past. They'd made a cozy little life here, created their own world of simple pleasure.  
  
Sören and Dooku kissed again, and just before Maglor could clear his throat, alerting them to his presence, Auli barked.  
  
They quickly let go and Dooku turned his head, surprise in his eyes even though there shouldn't have been. He blushed - Maglor realized then Dooku was tenting a little, understandable, he would be too if he were kissing Sören like that.  
  
Sören patted his shoulder. "Have a good time," Sören said.  
  
"Thank you." Dooku leered and said, "Not as good as you and I will have later, of course."  
  
Now Sören was blushing; he bit his lower lip and crinkled his nose.  _Dammit,_  Maglor cursed internally - he'd always gotten a little aroused when Sören did that, innocent-yet-naughty, and he was having the same start at it now, like if someone waved a piece of fresh meat in front of Auli.  
  
Sören gave a nod and a small wave in acknowledgment to Maglor, before closing the door quietly.  
  
"Good morning," Dooku said, coming down the path from the cabin. "We're going to the bay as usual?"  
  
"As usual," Maglor said.  
  
Dooku was dressed down but still put together, in khakis, a dark brown button-down shirt open over a lighter brown shirt, well-fit to his trim, powerful build. A few minutes down the path and he wasn't tenting anymore, not that Maglor was looking.  
  
_OK, I'm looking. I'm not blind._  Dooku was a handsome man, well-preserved.  _And nicely hung, from the looks of it._  
  
_...Couldst thou not._

Dooku was walking a step ahead of him, and Maglor now got a view of a very nice, shapely, firm rear end as well, much nicer than anyone that age should have.  Maglor wanted to hide; he quickly caught up, walking beside the silver-haired gentleman, to not keep staring _at that magnificent.._.  His face was on fire.  
  
Dooku broke the silence. "Thank you again for picking me up last night."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
A slight frown. "I feel as if I should apologize that you weren't invited to the solstice party."  
  
Maglor gave a small shrug. "Even without the awkwardness between us, Sören knows me well enough to know those type of events aren't my thing."  _And especially not with Vanimórë flaunting his conquest in front of me._  He felt that fire of jealous rage again.  
  
"They're not really my thing either. I went to be supportive."  
  
"That was kind of you."  
  
"I feel like it's important to show Sören I support his studio, it was a dream of his for some time and I'm proud of him, making that dream a reality." The pride was obvious in Dooku's voice.  
  
Maglor sighed. As much as he wanted to hate Dooku for  _taking what is mine_ , he couldn't. If Sören had to be with someone else... the love Dooku felt for Sören shone like facets of a diamond. There was  _reverence_  when Dooku spoke of him - the same reverence Maglor still felt, all these years later. Sören deserved to be with someone who truly understood and appreciated him, and wouldn't try to change him into something more "normal", taming the fire; Sören seemed to have truly come into his own in life, and Maglor had no doubt that the love he'd found with Dooku contributed to that.  
  
And Sören could do far worse. Dooku was educated, cultured, literate, elegant. He had a paternal manner to him that Sören no doubt found comforting, with his history - even Maglor found it soothing; around Dooku, Maglor could almost forget that he was technically the older one, by quite a lot.  
  
But just as Sören reminded Maglor of his father, albeit in a gentler, vulnerable, almost-more-lovable form, Dooku reminded him quite a bit of his uncle Fingolfin, with the same dignity and quiet strength, suave confidence that needed no boasting like the so-called "alpha males" these days, simply  _was_. Indeed, the parallels between them, and what he'd observed of their relationship, were very reminiscent of the relationship between Fëanor and Fingolfin who were not simply brothers, but were lovers... soulmates. Fingolfin considered Fëanor's children as much his as the ones he'd sired, and vice versa. They were punished by the Valar for their incest, their pride - their  _rightful_  pride - and it was one of the things that made Maglor lose faith in the Valar, to scorn something as beautiful as they were. Fëanor and Fingolfin balanced each other perfectly - Fingolfin was serious where Fëanor was jovial, Fingolfin was reserved where Fëanor was warm and friendly, Fingolfin was calm and rational where Fëanor was temperamental and impulsive. Fëanor got Fingolfin to lighten up, relax, and enjoy himself every now and again, and Fingolfin helped Fëanor navigate his moods, and provided the necessary support and planning that Fëanor needed for his crusade. Fingolfin was willing to go to war for his brother, to kill and be killed; Maglor sensed a similar dark undercurrent in Dooku, that he would be a dangerous, lethal enemy.  
  
He respected that. If Dooku was an opponent for Sören's affections, he was a worthy one.  
  
Fingolfin and Dooku even had a similar sounding voice, deep, rich velvet.  
  
Maglor felt heat flush his cheeks _again_ , remembering how Fingolfin had taken his virginity when he came of age a long time ago - he'd asked for it, he'd wanted it, even though it was sin, they were damned by the Valar for their unnatural desire,  _nothing_  felt more natural - the way Fingolfin's deep voice had seduced him. Once, Fingolfin had made him come just from the sound of his voice alone.  
  
And oh, the way his father and uncle had shared him together... Fëanor was possessive, but sharing with his brother-lover was a pleasure to him...  
  
Seeing Vanimórë and Sören dance last night, and knowing they had been intimate, was salt in the wound. It was also a nail in the coffin. He had come here looking for closure. Sören was avoiding him, and the evidence strongly pointed to Sören being in good hands with Dooku, and that there was nothing left here for him. When Maglor got back to the cottage, he was going to get online and buy a one-way ticket out of here. He hadn't yet decided where; he had options. Venice, maybe. Berlin.  
  
There was a warning voice at the back of Maglor's head.  _Give it more time..._  
  
_And have my heart trampled some more, Sören dangled just out of reach, while Vanimórë gets to have him?_ Maglor's jaw set.  _If I am to stay here, and see what comes of all of this... I need a sign. And my faith in omens was destroyed quite some time ago._  
  
He was arguing with himself on a Saturday morning.  
  
Dooku broke the silence again. "Actually, speaking of Sören and the studio, I meant to mention this to you yesterday, and it slipped my mind..." Dooku broadcasted the mental image of an emotional conversation with Sören at the Goðafoss, shaken, though Maglor otherwise didn't get to see details of what it was about. "He'd like you to meet him at the studio tomorrow at 4 PM, when his Sunday classes are over. He wants to talk to you about something."  
  
Maglor paused in his tracks, but just for a few seconds. It was, however, enough that Dooku noticed and paused as well, giving Maglor a pointed look when they resumed walking again.  
  
"Did he say what it was about?"  
  
"I know what it's about," Dooku replied, "but he'd rather you just come down so he can talk to you himself."  
  
Maglor nodded. "I'll be there."  
  
He would hold off on buying that ticket, for at least one more day.  
  
  
_  
  
  
When Dooku got back to the cabin, Sören was already home, painting. Dooku smiled, taking a moment to savor the sight - Sören was rarely more beautiful to him than when he was in the act of creation.  
  
He was painting Van, in a garden. Dooku was intrigued at what the end result would be - Sören always seemed to paint some sort of deeper truth to a person's spirit or place's energy.  
  
"How were your classes?" Dooku asked as he removed his shoes.  
  
"Good." Sören nodded. "How was your hike?"  
  
"Enjoyable, though Alejandro seems in a pensive mood today, he was even quieter than usual." Dooku suspected it had something to do with seeing Sören and Van together last night; he was relieved that Alejandro had not made a scene about it.  
  
_Not yet._  
  
"Also," Dooku went on, "I told him to meet you at the studio tomorrow. I'd meant to do it yesterday -"  
  
"It's all right. So he'll be there?"  
  
"He will."  
  
Dooku heard a sharp intake of breath, and Sören nodded; Dooku could feel Sören steeling himself.  
  
"What would you like to do for dinner tonight?" Dooku asked.  
  
"I'm flexible."  
  
Dooku's mind immediately went into the gutter at that, thinking of Sören in an exotic position, feasting on him. "Would you like to go out?" He wanted to spoil Sören a little.  
  
"OK. I should probably take a break from this anyway."  
  
They went to Serrano, and when they came back, Sören went to the bathroom for his usual pre-sex cleanup routine, and then, naked, stood in the bathroom door, gesturing for Dooku to join him.  
  
Dooku quickly removed his clothing, and Sören and Dooku kissed their way into the shower. Sören couldn't stop touching him. Between hungry kisses at Dooku's neck, Sören purred, "Something about playing with another body last night has given me a whole new appreciation for yours." His fingers ran through the hair on Dooku's chest, his arms; Sören nuzzled and kissed his beard. "You're so fucking sexy."  
  
They rubbed their cocks together, kissing, caressing as they lathered each other. By the time the shower was over they were both leaking precum, and Dooku laughed as he watched their cocks drip onto the floor.  
  
Then a lightbulb went off in his head, since Sören had said he could have his way...  
  
"You are a messy boy," Dooku said, his thumb rubbing Sören's frenulum, smiling as Sören cried out, and he watched more precum drip down.  
  
"You're messy too," Sören said, grinning.  
  
"Yes. You have that effect on me." Dooku kissed Sören roughly, and then he grabbed Sören's wet curls and pushed him onto his knees. "Since you like cum so much, you can clean that up... with your tongue."  
  
Dooku felt the start across their Force bond, felt Sören's cock throbbing at that, the  _oh FUCK_  in Sören's head. He watched intently as Sören did as he was told, looking up at him with heat in his eyes, making very deliberate slow licks with his tongue, as if to say  _you're next_.  
  
"You like that, don't you," Dooku said when Sören was almost done.  
  
"Mmmmmm." Sören nodded. "I like it when you boss me around."  
  
"Good." Dooku pulled Sören back up. "Teasing brats like you need to be reminded of who's in charge." He slapped Sören's ass and marched him to the bed.  
  
Before they could sit or lay down, Dooku watched as Sören used the Force to bring out a bag he'd kept with his art supplies. It was a bag from the pet store. After it floated across the room into Sören's hand, Sören handed it to him. "Open it," he said.  
  
Dooku reached inside and pulled out a black leather dog collar... and a matching leash.  
  
"Well... what do we have here." Dooku was surprised, and now even more aroused, knowing Sören had been wanting this domination from him, fantasizing about it, craving it. He loved his husband's filthy mind.  
  
Sören got on his knees. Dooku put the collar around Sören's neck, and clipped the leash through it. The look of love and trust in Sören's eyes made his heart melt, and he stroked Sören's cheek. "Aren't you precious."  
  
When he moved his fingers away, Sören moved his head forward and sucked them into his mouth, narrowing his eyes, giving Dooku a predatory look as he sucked his fingers, back and forth like he was giving a blowjob. He licked them then, and gave them a little kiss.  
  
That got Dooku's blood stirring even more, and he stepped forward, hard cock in Sören's face. "Get this ready for you."  
  
He groaned as he watched Sören's full, luscious lips wrap around the head of his cock, and take it in slowly, inch by inch. Sören worked his head back and forth slowly, working his tongue as he sucked; the sight of his cock gliding in and out of Sören's mouth, and the heat in Sören's eyes, made Dooku groan, clutching Sören's curls, eventually thrusting gently into Sören's mouth, which made Sören suck him harder, faster, encouraged.  
  
Sören was good, and he didn't want to be undone this quickly. Dooku tugged on the leash. "Up," he said.  
  
Sören got up, and Dooku kissed him hard, pushing him back onto the bed, climbing on and over him. After a few kisses, Dooku tugged on the leash and ground out, "Get down on all fours, face down, arse up."  
  
Giving him a naughty little grin, Sören got in position, head on the pillows, and he teasingly wiggled his ass at Dooku, whose response was to give it a playful slap. Sören moaned, and Dooku slapped his ass again, making Sören moan louder.  
  
"You," Dooku said, "are a naughty boy, teasing me the way you do."  
  
"Mmmm, yes."  
  
Dooku spanked Sören again, cock throbbing at the way Sören cried out, and the pleasure he could feel across their Force bond, Sören in heat for this. Sören was starting to grind against the mattress.  
  
"So naughty." Dooku slapped Sören's ass again. "You can't control yourself, can you?"  
  
Sören whimpered. "I need it so bad..."  
  
Dooku spanked Sören again, and again. "Naughty boy." He got behind Sören, on his knees, and started to rub his hard cock into the crack of Sören's ass, teasing them both, holding off on what they both wanted. The leash in one hand, he spanked Sören's ass with the other. "You had your fun last night, but you still want this cock?"  
  
"Please..."  
  
"Naughty, teasing brats like you shouldn't get what they want right away." Dooku spanked Sören's ass again, admiring the way the perfect curvature bloomed red. He rubbed where he'd slapped, and Sören whined, wiggling his ass again.  
  
"Please, please..." Sören begged.  
  
"So naughty." Dooku continued rubbing, but his voice was shaking now, his knees quivering, the sensation combining with the delicious sights and sounds of Sören's surrender to bring him to that edge already.  
  
"Take me... have your way with me... show me who's in charge..."  
  
"If I give into you right now, you get to be in charge, don't you, brat?" Dooku spanked Sören's ass again, and Sören cried out in a way that made Dooku shudder, cock continuing to harden, balls tightening.  
  
Dooku pulled back - he couldn't keep rubbing against Sören like this if he wanted to last. And there were ways to have more fun. Dooku leaned down and licked around the outside of the inviting channel, making Sören whine, and when he dipped his tongue inside Sören's opening, Sören screamed, fisting the pillows.  
  
Dooku laughed softly and began to lick inside Sören slowly, groaning appreciatively as Sören bucked against him, whimpering, howling. His tongue found the sweet spot right away, making exquisite love to it, and it wasn't long before the slow, deliberate lashes of his tongue had Sören panting, gasping, shaking, not even able to make words to beg for his cock.  
  
Dooku continued his slow teasing for a few minutes that felt like eternity to them both, so pent up were they, and then he licked harder, faster. The scream Sören produced almost set Dooku off right there; he slapped Sören's ass for good measure, and Sören howled again.  
  
Then Dooku felt movement. He withdrew his tongue and pulled his head back, noticing that Sören was reaching between his legs, desperately stroking himself.  
  
"Did I say you could touch yourself, brat?"  
  
"No, but I need..."  
  
Dooku slapped Sören's ass as hard as he could, and gave a few more hard spanks, with Sören whimpering, panting, still continuing to play with his cock. Dooku used the Force to open the drawer of the bedtable, and silk scarves flew out. He grabbed Sören's arm roughly, and used the Force to bind Sören's wrists together behind his back. "Fuck..." Sören shuddered, and Dooku growled at the feeling of desire across their bond, how much Sören  _hungered_  to be dominated this way.  
  
"Brat," Dooku rasped. He slapped Sören's ass again, hard. "Now where was I..."  
  
He put his face back down there and licked Sören's channel even more slowly and deliberately than before. His own cock was aching to take Sören, drive into him, but he kept that iron control, knowing they would both be richly rewarded for his patience. "Such a naughty boy," Dooku husked between licks. "Naughty, naughty."  
  
"Dammit, Nico..." Sören's breath came out in shivering gasps. "Please... please fuck me..."  
  
"I am fucking you." Dooku's tongue licked harder, faster, and Sören whined.  
  
" _Dammit!_  Nico!"  
  
Dooku slapped Sören's ass again, and rubbed. He gave a firm tug of the leash. "Now now, my pet, you said I could have my way with you tonight..."  
  
" _Ffffuuckkkk._ "  
  
"Mmmmm." Dooku's tongue slowed down. "I can't resist doing this to you..."  
  
"Fucking  _hell_ , Nico..." Sören shuddered again. "I feel like I'm gonna die if I don't get your cock in me..."  
  
"Mmmmmmmm, you poor dear." Dooku's tongue licked even more slowly.  
  
"Nico..."  
  
Dooku tugged the leash again. "Teasing brat."  
  
"Nico!"  
  
In the back of his mind, Dooku heard a voice.  _Ñolo..._  In his mind's eye, a flash of mental images... doing just this, on luxurious tapestry rugs before a blazing fire, a leash made of jewels on a chain extending from a collar around Sören's neck, wrapped around his hand, fine wine poured over Sören's back and ass, tasting the wine mingled with Sören's flesh and musk, but it was somehow different, Sören-but-not-Sören - a flood of dark hair - and he kept panting  _Ñolo, Ñolo_  as he writhed beneath the teasing tongue...  
  
Dooku believed in past lives, he'd once told Sören that. But he'd never explored any of his own, not wanting the conceit that came with so many spiritual seekers, hoping they had some kind of fame and fortune in a prior incarnation - after all that was then and this was now. Yet, the thought that he and Sören had been together before, and had done  _this_  before... that pleased him. He didn't know the full story, where they were, who they were... but it was still a pleasing thought.  
  
Dooku's focus returned to the task at hand, continuing to tease Sören with his tongue. Sören was completely at his mercy, whimpering, trembling. Dooku's tongue rubbed faster and harder, sensing across their bond that Sören was right on that edge, almost ready to come, but Dooku kept him there, not allowing him release just yet.  
  
When he sensed Sören was getting too close, he pulled back, laughing at Sören's scream of frustration. He slapped Sören's ass again. He rose to his knees and positioned himself behind Sören once more, rubbing his cock into the crack of Sören's ass, groaning as Sören whimpered.  
  
"Please, please," Sören begged.  
  
"You want me inside you?"  
  
"PLEASE."  
  
Dooku used the Force to retrieve their lube, pouring it over the crack of Sören's ass, cock twinging as he watched the lube dripping into Sören's opening. He then poured lube over his cock, even though he was leaking so much precum now his entire shaft was glistening with it. Dooku worked two fingers into Sören's hole, rubbing the prostate in slow, lazy circles. Sören bucked against him, fucking his fingers, panting "please, please, please, Nico," in rhythm with his hips.  
  
Then Dooku poised the head of his cock against Sören's opening. "Yes?"  
  
" _Yessss._ "  
  
Dooku put in just the tip, and back out. Just the tip, in and out. Teasing,  _teasing._  Dooku was fighting off the urge to come, himself, and the sounds Sören made were even more delicious. At last, he relented, pushing into Sören until he bottomed out, and both of them moaned together.  
  
Dooku started to thrust, slowly, savoring the way Sören wrapped around him, the silken heat of him, and the sensations he could feel across their bond, Sören's prostate pleasured, and Sören in turn could feel the grip on Dooku's cock... the two bound together so strong it was as if they didn't know where one ended and the other began.   
  
"So naughty," Dooku husked, slapping Sören's ass again.  
  
"Mmmmm... fuck me, Nico..."  
  
Dooku continued his slow thrusts inside Sören, waiting. When he was ready, he tugged the leash with one hand, his free hand seizing a handful of Sören's curls. He started fucking Sören harder, faster. "Did he fuck you like this?"  
  
Sören's fists curled against the bonds behind his back. "Harder..."  
  
Dooku slapped Sören's ass and started fucking him harder. "Like that?"  
  
"Harder!"  
  
Dooku was pounding Sören into the mattress now, the obscene slap of their flesh and the wet suctioning of their fuck filling the room, almost louder than Sören's panting cries. "Oh, Nico..."  
  
"Am I fucking you harder than he did, now?"  
  
"Yes... yes..."  
  
"Whose is this?"  
  
"Yours. God, Nico, it's yours, I'm yours, take it..."  
  
"That's right. I may let you play with others, but you're  _mine._ " Dooku slapped Sören's ass again.  
  
"God, so good..." Sören shivered. "Fuck me, Nico, FUCK ME!"  
  
"You naughty boy.  _My_  naughty boy."  
  
"Yours, yours, yours..." Sören was rocking his hips against Dooku's now, fucking himself hard on Dooku's cock, even as Dooku continued to slam into him. They weren't going to last much longer.  
  
" _Mine._ "  
  
"Yours..." Sören was shaking from head to toe now, making little feral noises. He was right there... "I'm yours, my husband, my soulmate..."  
  
_Yes._  God,  _yes._  Dooku slapped his ass again, as hard as he could. "Come for me."  
  
" _NICO!!!_ " Sören shook violently, his toes curling, and Dooku gasped as he felt Sören clenching around him, pulsing, twitching.   
  
With a cry, Dooku spent into him, collapsing on top of him. "Sören.  _Sören_ , my love..."  
  
"Nico. Oh  _god_  Nico, I love you." Sören was gasping for breath.  
  
Dooku tilted Sören's face to his and kissed him hard, and then kissed and licked down Sören's neck, bit the sweet spot where the neck meets the shoulder, making Sören tremble and twitch around him again, milking his cock, Dooku groaning as he let out another blast of cum inside him.  
  
Dooku used the Force to unbind Sören's wrists, and Sören stretched out his arms; Dooku took his hands. He rested his head in Sören's shoulder, nose in his curls, dissolving into sweetness and light, the sound of Sören catching his breath the sweetest music he'd ever heard.  
  
He finally pulled out; he'd made quite a mess, with cum leaking from Sören's stretched hole onto the bed. He used the Force to produce a salve they kept in their bedtable for the occasions when Sören got a spanking, and rolled Sören against him, cradling him like he was a precious child, gently rubbing salve onto the bruised cheeks.  
  
"That," Sören said, "was fucking hot."  
  
Dooku kissed the tip of his nose. "If I get to do that to you every time you go off to have a little fun, I think I rather like this arrangement."  
  
Sören grinned, that wicked, innocent-but-naughty grin he loved so much, lighting up Sören's face, lighting up the entire world. "Good."  
  
Dooku kissed Sören's forehead. "I love you."  
  
" _Ég elska þig, elskan mín._ "  
  
Dooku continued to rub salve onto Sören's ass, and then just held him. When Sören adjusted his position a little, he cringed.  
  
"Hurts?"  
  
"Jæja, but..." Sören grinned and stroked his face. "I have no regrets."  
  
"Still."  
  
Sören kissed him, and that kiss got Dooku going again. With a little growl, Dooku began to kiss Sören's neck, and Sören gasped, clutching him urgently.  
  
"Let me kiss it and make it better." Dooku began kissing his way down Sören's body, to feast on him once more; Sören opened his legs and arched to him, crying out as he felt the tongue slip back inside.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Maglor arrived at Logifugl Listaskóli right at four PM precisely. The last car was pulling out of the parking lot, leaving Sören's black jeep with its rainbow flag bumper sticker; a couple students were walking home.  
  
Nervous, feeling like he was made of lead with every step, he approached the office building that Sören had converted into an art studio, and opened the door, startling a little at the chime.  
  
The first thing he saw was a painting on the wall by the door, which he recognized right away both from having seen it years ago, and because it mirrored the work on Sören's back, except this had more detail, and was set against the backdrop of space, with the flaming star that Sören didn't know was Maglor's family seal, but it had been one of the many things that felt  _fated_  about their bond, and made it particularly painful on Maglor's end when they separated.  
  
Maglor walked down the hall, making himself not look at the other paintings, not wanting to  _feel_  right now above and beyond what he was already feeling.  
  
Sören was putting away paints when he walked in. He was wearing faded jeans and a Nine Inch Nails shirt, his shoulder-length curls hanging loose, unruly. He looked irritatingly gorgeous. Sören paused what he was doing and gestured to a long table set with steel folding chairs. "Have a seat," he said.  
  
Maglor pulled out a chair and sat; Sören also sat across from him, with Sören sitting gingerly, wincing a little as he sat. For a moment they just sat there in awkward silence - Sören was looking down, staring at the table, and Maglor watched him, still captivated by Sören's beauty, even as his heart gnawed, wishing he could do something,  _anything_  about that wounded look in those warm chocolate eyes, the wound he'd put there years ago.  
  
Sören finally looked up, and ran a nervous hand through his curls. "Um, you want anything? I have drinks in the fridge, water, soda..."  
  
"Water is fine." Maglor's heart raced; he'd almost forgotten the way Sören's Icelandic accent in that smoky voice affected him, Sören could say anything and it would sound sexy.  
  
Sören got up, walked to another room, and came back with a bottle of water for Maglor and a can of Pepsi for himself. He sat back down across from Maglor, wincing again - it was then Maglor realized why Sören was sitting carefully, wincing, and heat flooded him, desperately trying to keep those thoughts, that desire still  _very_ much present, at bay. Maglor watched intently as Sören opened his can and took a few sips - Sören's lips did nothing to pull his mind out of the gutter, only made it worse. Then Sören looked at Maglor, set the can down, ran his hand through his hair, and rubbed his face. He leaned back in his chair.  
  
"OK," Sören said. "You're probably wondering why I asked you to come here."  
  
"I am, yes."  
  
Sören nodded. "So... I opened this place back in April of 2018, when I moved back home after spending some time in London. It's been doing fairly well, I have sixty-four adult students taking different classes, and about two dozen kids. Recently, it came up that about a third of my adult students want music classes offered here. I wasn't thrilled with the idea, but what my students want is important to me, it keeps me in business, and as importantly, helps the community." Sören gestured to Maglor, and folded his arms. "I'm here to offer you a job for the summer."  
  
Maglor put down his water. He could feel himself bristling at the suggestion. He was an introvert, even moreso than Sören...  
  
"You... want me to teach a music class."  
  
"A couple classes. You play guitar and piano, right? So if you did two days a week, you could offer guitar one day, piano the next..."  
  
"Sören." Maglor felt his eyes narrowing. "As a musician... I cannot accept this offer. I'm better at  _making_  music, composing, playing, than I am at trying to teach someone else... I'm not good with people...  _you know this_."  
  
Oh no.  _The puppy dog face._  Sören hadn't used that face on him in years, but here he was now, making that sad, adorable face, and it still went right to his heart.  
  
"Dammit, Sören."  
  
"Please?" Sören batted his eyelashes and leaned forward. "It would really help me out. And I would of course make sure you get paid -"  
  
"- I don't need money -"  
  
"- consider yourself paid in my gratitude." Sören folded his arms again. "And perhaps, a show of proof that you aren't, actually, a completely callous arsehole who never cared about me at all."  
  
That sad puppy face again.  
  
Maglor took a deep breath. Sören, once again, knew how to hit below the belt. But he couldn't blame him, not after the way he'd left... the way he hadn't wanted to leave, either. Faking his own death would have been kinder, for most people, but he knew Sören would have taken his own life, and he couldn't bear to have such a bright light go out from the world.  
  
_And thou wert hoping, subconsciously, that it would give thee a loophole back in, someday. Not that it would ever work._  
  
They had one of those long, meaningful glances, and then Sören sipped his Pepsi, waiting.  
  
Maglor broke the silence. "Two days a week, one instrument per day? That's not really enough -"  
  
"What would you recommend?"  
  
"Two days a week per instrument, four days a week total."  
  
"One class per day, or two?"  
  
"My preference is two, not just for flexibility with people's schedules - so people who can't do a morning class because of work could do late afternoon or early evening - but also so they'd be smaller classes, which would give students more time for individual attention."  
  
"OK then." Sören put the can down and folded his arms again. "Currently, I work three weekends per month, and usually take Thursdays or Fridays off when I work on the weekends, it rotates, but starting in July - technically starting next week, the last weekend of June - this will be changing for the rest of the summer, where the studio is open Monday through Friday and I have the weekends off. If you start the week of Monday, July first, it gives you time to create a lesson plan and get together whatever instruments you need -"  
  
"All right." Maglor nodded. "For you, I will." Maglor glared.  
  
Sören uncrossed his arms, smiled, and that smile made it worth it.  _Fuck._  
  
"So... we'll have to touch base about how much you're charging," Sören said. "I know you say you don't want money, but I don't think you should just have classes for free either, that creates an expectation for me to offer mine for free or reduced rate and I already charge as little as I can get away with -"  
  
Maglor shook his head. "I won't refuse to be paid, I just may donate the money in that case. Do you have a charity preference?"  
  
Sören's breath caught and Maglor could hear the broadcast  _how dare you be so sweet, this is already hard enough_. Maglor truly wasn't offering to donate just to make a tug at Sören's heartstrings, he was already in the habit of giving some of his wealth to good causes... but Sören's reaction was a nice added bonus. He gave Sören a little smile.  
  
"Trevor Project? It's for LGBT youth, particularly suicide prevention -"  
  
Maglor nodded. "I'll donate the proceeds there."  
  
"OK. You don't have to decide right now what you're charging, there's a price list on my website that you can compare, later... um... you can also figure out what days of the week, sometime between Monday and Friday. When I'm off, I typically don't want other people in my building, I'd rather not have to make a set of spare keys for you..."  
  
"I'm fine with days you're already going to be here."  
  
"And there's one more thing." Sören's eyes met his. "For this to work, for the sake of my sanity, and yours... I've been thinking about it, and... I don't hate you."  
  
He'd already heard that from Dooku, but it was a different thing to hear it from Sören himself. His heart skipped a beat; he swallowed hard.  
  
"You hurt me,  _badly_ , but..." Sören waved his hand, and folded his arms. "If we're going to work together, and have it not turn into a toxic, hostile work environment for both of us, I'm giving you a blank slate. I'm going to try to forget what happened, or at least not let it influence how we interact while you're here doing a favor for me."  
  
"I appreciate that, Sören, but... just the same, we can't sweep it under the rug forever."  
  
"We can't, and we shouldn't. If you want closure, at some point we need to talk about all of that, and we will. But I'm not ready to have that discussion right now, and I think we need to not have that discussion hanging over our heads until we're both ready, which is a big part of why I've been avoiding you. I also think that discussion when it does happen is less likely to end badly if we can..." Sören rubbed his head. "Try to get along, be friends, or at least be cordial." Their eyes met. "You've been kind to my husband, and I appreciate that. He doesn't have a lot of friends, he hasn't had a lot of kindness in his life. I don't want him to feel like he has to walk on eggshells around me about you, even without the added complication now of us working together in a small-ish space. So, it's why I'm offering a blank slate, water under the bridge,  _for now_."  
  
"All right." Maglor's heart lifted, a little. This was something he could live with, though there was that issue of Sören and Vanimórë...  
  
"All right?"  
  
Maglor nodded. "All right."  
  
"All right." Sören got up, finished up his can of Pepsi, and resumed putting away the paints. "We should meet to touch base about the class stuff, so..."  
  
"We should, yes."  
  
"How does Friday the 28th work for you, 5 PM my place? You can have dinner with us?"  
  
Six days. "I can be there."  
  
"OK."  
  
"Would you like some help putting things away?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
They worked together in silence, but it was less awkward than their silences before. Maglor figured out where and how Sören organized his paints. They walked out together to their respective vehicles, and Sören waved before he got in his jeep. "Take care," Sören said, climbing in.  
  
Maglor didn't drive home right away - he drove to the bay, and sat there for awhile, watching the sea.  
  
_Thou didst ask for a sign to stay here. There is thy sign._


	19. The Soviet Love Hammer

**The Soviet Love Hammer**

 

When Sören got home from the meeting with Alejandro at the studio, he was in a fairly pensive mood. Dooku was out grocery shopping, and Sören pulled Snúdur onto his lap, petting him as he logged into Stardew Valley, trying to shake the feeling.  
  
The painting of Van beckoned, but Sören wasn't in the proper headspace to resume work on that. He was still feeling raw - even though the meeting with Alejandro had gone well, and he meant what he said about wanting to give him a clean slate for now and make things less awkward for both of them and Dooku as well, he still felt a host of complicated feelings being in his presence.  
  
For some reason, Sören started thinking about Claire again, and the visionary flash he'd had before the solstice party. He found himself opening up another tab, and doing the same Googlemancy that turned up the information of Claire's death.  
  
She had an online journal preserved as a memorial account, and as much as Sören felt a little creepy poking at it, his curiosity got the better of him. Most of the most recent entries were fairly mundane, albeit glimpses of the depression she was in peeked through. She had taken a vacation several months prior to her death, to Scotland. He clicked the cut and saw photos, with a blurb she'd written for each. One was a selfie of she and her cousin Harrison, drinking Irn Bru; the silly faces in the camera reminded Sören of his own family, and he smiled sadly.  
  
Then he saw, in the blurbs, that she had specifically been vacationing in St. Andrew's, Scotland. A recognition bell went off in his head.  _Where have I heard that name before?_  
  
Then remembering the conversation with Dagnýr on the family chat server, where he'd mentioned getting the family Bible from their aunt Birgitta, who'd moved to St. Andrew's, Scotland to be with her Scottish lesbian partner. Sören had gotten her contact info from Dagnýr, intending to apologize for the way he'd chewed her out before she could explain about why she hadn't been in contact, and he hadn't followed through on that.  
  
Sören pulled up the contact info, and got out his cell phone. He dialed, and waited. Four rings, and he was about to hang up, and then a soft, deep woman's voice: "Hello."  
  
"Gitta?" Sören swallowed hard.  
  
"...Yes? Who might be calling?" she asked in English.  
  
"Gitta,  _hvernig hefurðu það? Þetta er sonur systur þinnar, Sören._ " He continued on in English, for courtesy in case her English-speaking partner was around, and also because he knew from experience with Dagnýr that he'd lived enough time away from Iceland to now be more comfortable with English unless emotions were running high - such as they were in 2017 when their aunt Katrín was dying. "Dagnýr said he'd been in touch with you recently and gave me your contact information."  
  
"I see."  
  
Sören took a deep breath.  _Here goes._  "I want to apologize for the last time - and really only time - we talked to each other which was... thirteen years ago? I think? And I just blew up at you for not being there, leaving Katrín and Einar to raise us, not giving you a chance to explain why that happened. Dagnýr told me that you're gay, you're a witch, and Katrín had a problem with that. And... I didn't know. I wish I had let you tell me, and I am so, so sorry for that." His voice shook as he felt the pang of guilt, tears burning his eyes.  
  
More silence, and then Birgitta said, "Well, Sören, your response was understandable. I would have been angry too, if I were in your position, I can't say that I would have been calm and rational and willing to listen to the other side of the story. And on my end, perhaps I shouldn't have waited for any of you to contact me to hear that side of things, perhaps I should have pushed and insisted you hear me out. The last thing I wanted to do was force my presence on you and make you even more uncomfortable, when you'd been through quite enough."  
  
Sören didn't know what to say to that, and at last he followed up with, "I'm sorry," again.  
  
"There's nothing to forgive. How have you been? I asked Dagnýr a few questions when he called, but we didn't get into too much detail. He says you're back in Akureyri?"  
  
"Já, I came back here a little over a year ago. I was in Reykjavik, then I was in London."  
  
"Ah... how did you like London?"  
  
"I didn't like it much, to be honest. Too big, too crowded. I met a couple special people there, though, so at least there's that."  
  
"At least there's that."  
  
"One of them I married... and Margrét is marrying the other."  
  
"Oh!" Sören could hear the smile in Birgitta's voice. "Your mother would have been pleased, I know."  
  
Sören's eyes misted again at the mention of his mother. "I would hope so."  
  
"How long have you been married?"  
  
"Since September. We met in October 2017. He moved from London to Iceland to be with me."  
  
"That must be an adjustment for him. Has he found a job, and..."  
  
A nervous laugh. "He's retired. He was a barrister in London, and there isn't much use for that here, and he's, um. A bit older than I am."  
  
"Oh, really."  
  
"He'll be seventy-one in December. But  _very_  well-preserved." Sören thought of the hard, wild fucking last night.  
  
"Age is just a number, if you're happy with him that's what counts. He and Jane are the same age, you know." Birgitta was fifty-six.  
  
"Jane is your partner...?"  
  
"Yes. She's still very spry, likes to go for a walk every day. If she met your husband she'd probably challenge him to jog against her and see who could finish first."  
  
"Sounds like they'd get along." Sören frowned. "They should meet.  _We_  should see each other, you haven't seen me since I was, what, four?"  
  
"I still remember. You drew me a picture as a going-away present, before I left for Scotland. It was a sheep. Wearing a kilt. I actually still have it tucked away somewhere."  
  
Sören laughed out loud. "Oh no, did I really draw that?"  
  
"You were always drawing things."  
  
"I still am. I have an art studio now, and I've had some shows around Reykjavik and London the last decade or so."  
  
"Oh, wonderful! Well, if we get together you have to show me your work!"  
  
"I will!" And then, on impulse, Sören blurted out, "Margrét and her girlfriend - my best friend Frankie - are getting married in Reykjavik on August 10th. Would you be able to fly out for that?"  
  
"I think I could arrange for that, yes."  
  
"Brilliant. We can get more caught up then, I know international cell calls can be a bit of a pain. In the meantime d'you want my e-mail address? Then I can link you to some of my stuff online..."  
  
"Sure."  
  
Sören and Birgitta traded e-mail, and then Sören heard Dooku's keys in the door. "Ah, my husband is home. So, uh, shoot me an e-mail, and let me know when you've got your trip planned for Reykjavik in August -"  
  
"I'm buying plane tickets for myself and Jane as we speak, Sören. And yes, go on, I'll e-mail you later." A pause. "Thank you so much for calling me, this made my day."  
  
"You're welcome." Sören smiled. "We'll be in better touch now, já?"  
  
"We will. Take care and tell Dagnýr and Margrét I said hello."  
  
"Will do."  
  
"Blessed Be, Sören."  
  
Sören got up and greeted Dooku at the door with a hug and kiss, and helped him carry groceries inside even though he didn't need the help. "It's nice to see you smiling," Dooku said. "You were on the phone?"  
  
Sören nodded. "My aunt Gitta, my mother's sister in Scotland."  
  
Dooku's eyebrows raised. "Oh, that's interesting."  
  
"Já, I'd meant to call her before now, after Dagnýr mentioned being in touch with her, but, ah." Sören made a vague hand gesture. "Things have been kind of crazy." Sören's eyes lit up at the steak. "We're having this tonight?"  
  
"Yes, I'm going to grill them outside."  
  
" _Awesome._ " Sören grinned. "But yes, that was what I was doing just now, was catching up a little with Gitta. We'll catch up some more at the wedding in August."  
  
"Oh, Margrét invited her?"  
  
And then it dawned on Sören that he'd made a bit of a faux pas, and he facepalmed. "Er... I invited her." He cringed. "I was so caught up in the emotions running high that I didn't think, I just assumed it would be OK..."  
  
Dooku chuckled. "Hopefully it will be, but if not, you'll have to tell her..."  
  
"Welllllll, she was buying her plane tickets right then. Soooo." Sören rubbed his face. "I'll have to get on chat later and tell Margrét I did an oops. Hopefully she won't be too mad."  
  
"I'll clean up and then get the grill going, you should maybe tell her sooner rather than later because the way she takes that notice now might be better than when she's dealing with drunken bar patrons later."  
  
" _God._ "

  
  
_

  
  
**[5:46 PM] Sören:**  henlo  
  
**[5:51 PM] Margrét:**  *waves*  
  
**[5:52 PM] Dagnýr:**  *also waves*  
  
**[5:54 PM] Ari:**  Hello!  
  
**[5:56 PM] Sören:**  I have some news  
  
**[5:58 PM] Margrét:**  I bet you do  
  
**[6:01 PM] Sören:**  I talked to our mother's sister Gitta  
  
**[6:03 PM] Sören:**  I apologized for the way I went off on her thirteen years ago when she tried getting in touch  
  
**[6:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  Oh, good.  
  
**[6:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  I take it that went OK?  
  
**[6:06 PM] Sören:**  it went pretty well  
  
**[6:06 PM] Sören:**  a bit better than expected  
  
**[6:06 PM] Sören:**  which is why, um, I popped in  
  
**[6:07 PM] Sören:**  I miiiiight have invited her and her partner to the wedding  
  
**[6:07 PM] Sören:**  and when I say "might have", I mean she was buying tickets while we were on the phone  
  
**[6:07 PM] Sören:**  meep  
  
**[6:09 PM] Margrét:**  :squint:  
  
**[6:10 PM] Sören:**  I legit wasn't thinking  
  
**[6:11 PM] Sören:**  it was one of my impulsive Sagittarius moments  
  
**[6:11 PM] Sören:**  Sag be like: ready, fire, aim  
  
**[6:12 PM] Sören:**  I should have checked with you first and I'm sorry  
  
**[6:12 PM] Sören:**  if you don't want her to come I can call her back and tell her  
  
**[6:13 PM] Margrét:**  Nah it's fine.  
  
**[6:13 PM] Margrét:**  That proverbial toothpaste is out of the tube, it's too late to push it back in.  
  
**[6:15 PM] Margrét:**  And honestly, if you hadn't invited her and had just come in here and said a conversation had gone well and you wanted to see her, I probably would have told you to invite her to the wedding.  
  
**[6:16 PM] Margrét:**  Just... in future, don't assume things, and don't do this again. Because I'm an Aries and will butt your head. :knife:  
  
**[6:18 PM] Sören:**  thank you for understanding, and I'm sorry  
  
**[6:19 PM] Dagnýr:**  Well, ha ha...  
  
**[6:19 PM] Dagnýr:**  uh  
  
**[6:19 PM] Dagnýr:**  ^^;  
  
**[6:21 PM] Margrét:**  ?  
  
**[6:22 PM] Dagnýr:**  That makes me feel slightly better because I, er, also had a Sagittarius moment, about the same thing.  
  
**[6:22 PM] Dagnýr:**  I invited Brian Proust to come with us to the wedding.  
  
**[6:23 PM] Dagnýr:**  He's been to Iceland "once or twice" but not in awhile and he's getting old and expressed interest in seeing it again, so.  
  
**[6:23 PM] Dagnýr:**  Y'all have an elderly calculus professor on the guest list now.  
  
**[6:24 PM] Dagnýr:**  Whoopsidoodle.  
  
**[6:25 PM] Margrét:**  :squint:  
  
**[6:25 PM] Margrét:**  It's one thing for Gitta to come because she's blood family, but I don't even know this Brian guy.  
  
**[6:26 PM] Dagnýr:**  He's honestly like a father to me.  
  
**[6:26 PM] Dagnýr:**  I didn't, and wouldn't have, invited a casual stranger, but Brian is a very dear friend.  
  
**[6:27 PM] Dagnýr:**  I can tell him I fucked up with the invite if you really want me to, and he'll probably understand I was being socially awkward  
  
**[6:28 PM] Margrét:**  I suppose he can come too, but  
  
**[6:29 PM] Margrét:**  *hands*  
  
**[6:31 PM] Margrét:**  Are there any other considerations for wedding guests that I should know about? Sören? You thinking of inviting anybody... special?  
  
**[6:32 PM] Dagnýr:**  Nani?  
  
**[6:33 PM] Sören:**  :squint:  
  
**[6:34 PM] Margrét:**  :sunglasses:  
  
**[6:35 PM] Sören:**  :squint: intensifies  
  
**[6:36 PM] Dagnýr:**  NANI  
  
**[6:37 PM] Sören:**  OH WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT Nico is finished grilling our steaks, so, I'mma go eat and I'll be back in a bit.  
  
**[6:38 PM] Margrét:**   ~~you're not getting off the hook~~  
  
**[6:39 PM] Sören:**  ;)  
  
**[6:40 PM] Dagnýr:**  NANI???

  
_

  
  
**[8:21 PM] Sören:**  all right, back  
  
**[8:22 PM] Dagnýr:**  So what's going on?  
  
**[8:24 PM] Sören:**  I don't know if I would define it as "going on" per se  
  
**[8:28 PM] Margrét:**  :squint:  
  
**[8:29 PM] Dagnýr:**  SÖREN  
  
**[8:31 PM] Dagnýr:**   _SÖREN_  
  
**[8:32 PM] Dagnýr:**  SÖREN WHAT'S GOING ON  
  
**[8:33 PM] Sören:**  Jesus  
  
**[8:33 PM] Sören:**  y'all be like  
  
**[8:34 PM] Sören:**

****

****

[Images: He Man singing the chorus from "What's Going On" by 4 Non Blondes.]

 

 **[8:35 PM] Margrét:**  please tell your brother before he explodes of curiosity  
  
**[8:36 PM] Sören:**  OK so  
  
**[8:36 PM] Sören:**  Nico and I had a talk about, uh, opening our relationship  
  
**[8:37 PM] Sören:**  I'm seeing Van.  
  
**[8:38 PM] Dagnýr:**  Van, the guy who's up the street  
  
**[8:38 PM] Dagnýr:**  with Alejandro, your ex  
  
**[8:39 PM] Dagnýr:**  [NANI INTENSIFIES]  
  
**[8:40 PM] Sören:**  apparently he and Van are just friends with benefits? or something?  
  
**[8:40 PM] Sören:**  which is basically what Van and I are?  
  
**[8:41 PM] Sören:**  though yes, I suppose you could say I'm rather taken with him.  
  
**[8:41 PM] Sören:**  and the thought had not yet occurred to me to invite him to the wedding, but that's not a bad idea, really.  
  
**[8:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  Well, if you're impressed with him he must be something.  
  
**[8:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  What's he like?  
  
**[8:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  Where's he from?  
  
**[8:45 PM] Sören:**  uh  
  
**[8:45 PM] Sören:**  you know, it's funny because I'm shagging him, but I don't actually know where he's from  
  
**[8:47 PM] Dooku:**  He's from Russia.  
  
**[8:48 PM] Sören:**  how is it that  _you_  know this and I don't  
  
**[8:49 PM] Dooku:**  I had the occasional Russian client back in the UK, I'm familiar with the accent, and awhile back I addressed him in Russian and he replied to me in Russian and asked if I was a speaker. He sounds rather like a young Yul Brynner, actually.  
  
**[8:51 PM] Sören:**  oh, OK then  
  
**[8:51 PM] Sören:**  so he's Russian  
  
**[8:53 PM] Dooku:**  It also fits the profile if he's some oligarch's son, as he'd mentioned his father was in government - lots of money, flashy taste, world traveler.  
  
**[8:55 PM] Dagnýr:**  Fascinating.  
  
**[8:56 PM] Sören:**  whoop my phone is going off brb  
  
  
"Hello?" Sören didn't recognize the number.  
  
"Sören." The familiar deep voice, sexy accent. "Hello."  
  
"Van! Ha ha, I was just talking about you."  
  
"Good things, I hope."  
  
"Probably." Sören smiled.  
  
"I'm not calling too late, I hope...?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I got your cell number from Alejandro."  
  
"Jæja, I can't believe we haven't already exchanged numbers. I'll put this in my phone."  
  
"I wanted to call and ask about your schedule this week."  
  
"Oh, yes. Well..." Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "I work Monday through Friday this week. I start earlier on Tuesday and get off early afternoon if you want to go for a drive, like 1:30 PM, pick me up at the studio?"  
  
"I'd like that, yes. And I'll be attending ceramics on Friday, yes?"  
  
"Yes, but ceramics will be a little earlier than it was last week - two PM. Also, I would normally ask you if you wanted to go anywhere and do anything after the class, but Alejandro is coming over at five that day so he and I can go over the music classes he'll be offering at the studio starting next week. I'd invite you to dinner along with him, but I feel like he and I need to discuss that privately -"  
  
"I understand. I'd be happy to drive you to and from the studio that day, though."  
  
"OK. And... well, I have the weekend off." Sören looked across at Dooku. "To make up for us not having a lot of time after my class on Friday, would you like to, ah, go on a date Saturday night? Is that OK, Nico?"  
  
"That's OK with me," Dooku said, nodding. With a wicked grin he leaned back in his seat and said, "Remember our deal."  
  
"Mmmmmm. Yes, Sunday night I'm all yours. If that works for you, Van, we get together Saturday night."  
  
"I'd like that." A soft laugh. "I will make reservations at the hotel again."  
  
"Oh myyyyyyyyy." Sören laughed too, his face on fire, his cock starting to wake up at the memory of the way he and Van made love after the solstice party. "That sounds wonderful."  
  
"I'm looking forward to it. In the meantime, Tuesday afternoon, and I will bring you home early evening?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"I will see you then. Good night, beauty."  
  
Sören swiped "End" with a happy little sigh.  
  
  
  
**[9:13 PM] Sören:**  that was Van  
  
**[9:13 PM] Sören:**  we have a date Saturday night  
  
**[9:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  Welp.  
  
**[9:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  So long as you're happy and nobody's toes are being stepped on?  
  
**[9:18 PM] Dooku:**  Nobody's toes are being stepped on. Sören and I talked about it all.  
  
**[9:19 PM] Margrét:**  I'll admit I'm dying of curiosity to meet this guy.  
  
**[9:19 PM] Margrét:**  You've been pretty reserved with dating and protective of yourself since Justin, so to have someone besides Dooku who's managed to interest you...  
  
**[9:21 PM] Sören:**  Well... admittedly I don't know him super well  
  
**[9:21 PM] Sören:**  I'm kind of embarrassed that I didn't know he was from Russia  
  
**[9:22 PM] Sören:**  I don't even know his last name, actually  
  
**[9:22 PM] Sören:**  or he might have told me and I forgot  
  
**[9:23 PM] Sören:**  I barely remember my name when he's through with me  
  
**[9:25 PM] Dagnýr:**  TMI  
  
**[9:27 PM] Margrét:**  LMAO  
  
**[9:27 PM] Margrét:**  He gives you that Soviet Love Hammer  
  
**[9:29 PM] Sören:**  *dies*  
  
**[9:31 PM] Dagnýr:**  GOD  
  
**[9:33 PM] Sören:**  I'm also seeing him on Tuesday afternoon when my classes are done, we're going for a little drive, so maybe we'll talk then.  
  
**[9:33 PM] Sören:**  or maybe we'll just... drive  
  
**[9:33 PM] Sören:**  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[9:34 PM] Sören:**  ON THAT NOTE  
  
**[9:35 PM] Sören:**  I think I'm gonna log off now... go for a ride ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[9:37 PM] Sören:**  I'll probably be painting the next couple days, there's a thing I really wanted to get done, so if you don't hear from me, I probably didn't get killed by dick  
  
**[9:37 PM] Sören:**  probably  
  
**[9:37 PM] Sören:**  possibly maybe  
  
**[9:39 PM] Dagnýr:**  *facepalm*  
  
**[9:39 PM] Dagnýr:**  Seriously though, if you're happy.  
  
**[9:41 PM] Sören:**  I'm happy. things are still, you know, awk with the ex up the street, but we're working on that, too.  
  
**[9:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  "Working on that"? What are y'all gonna have an orgy or something?  
  
**[9:44 PM] Sören:**  OH MY GOD DAG I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT  
  
**[9:44 PM] Sören:**  JESUS  
  
**[9:44 PM] Sören:**  OKAY I REALLY AM GOING NOW  
  
**[9:46 PM] Margrét:**  Have fun getting chiki briki with Russia's Greatest Love Machine on Tuesday! :D  
  
**[9:47 PM] Sören:**  cука блять  
  
_  
  
  
Later, as Dooku dozed off after their lovemaking - Sören riding his cock - Sören grabbed his phone to program Van's number into it.  
  
He had ringtones for specific people - "Immigrant Song" by Led Zeppelin for his brother, and "Tom Sawyer" by Rush for Dooku - and after thinking about it for a minute, he had a ringtone for Van... the chorus of "Rasputin" by Boney M.  
  
_Ra ra Rasputin  
Lover of the Russian queen  
There was a cat that really was gone  
Ra ra Rasputin  
Russia's greatest love machine  
It was a shame how he carried on_  
  
Sören was feeling energized after the sex. It was time to paint.


	20. The Garden Of A Thousand Delights

**The Garden Of A Thousand Delights**

 

Sören didn't sleep much that night, painting until late. The painting of Van at the Botanical Gardens in Akureyri took on a life of its own - Van wearing a violet silk robe, open, revealing his perfectly sculpted body and a generous cock, fully erect, dripping precum. As with  _Dancer in the Darkness_  Sören made his eyes a shocking, inhuman violet, brighter than the deep violet of his robe, but unlike the wild, orgasmic expression on Van's face in the portrait of him veil dancing, here a slight smile was on Van's lush mouth, a wicked look in his eyes, a look of pure seduction. Sören, himself, was getting aroused by it, as if Van beckoned  _Come, beauty_  through the canvas.  
  
In one hand, Van held a cup of red wine, and in his other hand he was holding... what looked like the beginning of a leash, but more ornate than the one Sören bought at the pet store. Set with violet crystals, fire opals, and diamonds.  
  
He hadn't started with the flowers yet, the background details would be the last. In the meantime, the painting needed... something. Something more. He wasn't sure what. Not just yet.  
  
What he was sure of, was that Van's flood of hair was taking an insanely long time to get just right.  
  
_  
  
When Sören was done with his classes on Monday afternoon, he immediately got back to work on his painting. He paused to give Dooku a hug and a kiss when Dooku headed out to walk with Alejandro. Hours later, Sören took a break to eat dinner outside with Dooku, and after dinner they took a shower together and had a slow, languid sixty-nine on the bed, kissing with their mouths full of cum. The sexual energy just added to Sören's creative fever, and when Dooku was dozing off, Sören was back at the canvas, completely lost in his vision.  
  
Sören painted straight through till the morning, not bothering to sleep. Dooku woke up with the alarm and gave Sören a concerned look as he made them coffee, though he knew from repeat experience that this was "normal" for his husband. "Are you still planning on getting together with Van this afternoon?" he asked as he brought the cup over to Sören.  
  
Sören nodded. "I need to take a break from this for a bit anyway."  _Study the subject some more._  
  
"All right. But  _do_  make sure to get some actual sleep later." Dooku gave him a stern look.  
  
A glimmer of an ancient memory - searing heat, exhausted, he'd been up for days, but  _must put in the finishing touches... get it just right..._  and the second he proclaimed the word "done", he looked from diamonds into diamonds - silver-blue eyes, amused and worried at the same time. Strong arms enfolding him, carrying him out of the smithy.  _"Time to rest, 'náro." So like Father..._  Laying him down, gently, sensually massaging him, soothing aching muscles that had been working for too long. Then cradling him, petting him, laughing at the little whine of protest that he wanted to come first.  _"There will be time enough for that later."_  A chuckle.  _"Sometimes it's hard to believe you're the older one of the two of us."_  And Sören-of-then just patted him sleepily and mumbled,  _"You always take such good care of me, Ñolo."_  
  
Sören startled a little as he came back to himself, snapped from the vision in his mind's eye to the vision in the painting before him. For an instant, Van's eyes seemed to glow on the canvas.  
  
Sören had never even set foot inside a smithy - the closest he'd come to it was the small shack out in back of the studio that he used for his kiln. Once, Dooku had mentioned he believed in past lives; Sören's own internal jury was out on that, as a skeptical agnostic, but on the other hand he exhibited "psychic" gifts that most of the world didn't believe existed, so it was possible there was more to the universe than he knew. He wondered if he was remembering something from a past life, now...  
  
...but he didn't have time for that. He looked at the clock, he had to get to the studio.  
  
"I'll drive you," Dooku said, which had been the plan anyway, and then Van would pick him up at 1:30.  
  
Sören leaned on Dooku, snuggling on the way down; with one hand on the wheel, Dooku's free hand affectionately rubbed Sören's knee. Dooku had on classical music, which wasn't Sören's go-to genre, but Alejandro had given him an appreciation for it years ago, and it was nice and relaxing now. At the studio, they lingered, exchanging one of those long, meaningful glances, and then Dooku leaned in and they kissed.  
  
"I love you, you know," Sören husked, stroking his face, his beard.  
  
"I know."  
  
"Thank you, again, for being so..." Sören made a vague hand gesture. "Cool about all of this."  
  
"I'd be lying if I said it wasn't an adjustment, but I think we are managing well, and I will be honest with you if there's a problem." Dooku kissed him again. "Your happiness is important to me."  
  
"Your happiness is important to me, Nico."  
  
"You make me happy." Dooku smiled, and the smile met his eyes, crinkling the corners. Sören smiled back. "Now go, and I'll see you this evening."  
  
Sören blew a kiss on the way out.  
  
The adult class dragged, even though he normally didn't mind watercolors; the children's class was better, it always made Sören feel like a big kid again. They were finishing up papier-mache crowns, which they'd been working on for a few weeks now - even though the children who attended his school all seemed to be from good homes, Sören knew from the experience of his own childhood that appearances could be deceiving, and even without abuse going on behind closed doors, Sören felt it was important to foster a sense of pride in oneself at a young age, so here they were all becoming magical princes and princesses, making crowns that reflected things about who they were and what they liked. One of the girls had fake flowers and leaves on her crown, with a fake small bird poised on the tallest spike. A boy had stenciled and painted dragons onto his crown, and made realistic dragon eggs out of papier-mache to put on the spikes. Another boy had Pokemon on his crown, with a miniature Pikachu on the tallest spike. Another girl had cats all over her crown, with a sculpted cat face on the front of her crown, and a fake cat tail hanging from the back. Another girl had a fake crow on the tallest spike, with blue-black feathers glued around the spikes of her crown, the crown itself painted in dramatic black glitter.  
  
Sören's own crown had swirling flames rising into the darkness of space, stars and supernovas. Today he put on the finishing touches - strands of artisan lampwork and sparkling goldstone glass beads hanging on wire from the crown, in colors matching the flames and nebulas. One of the children surprised him by giving him three small antique diamond-shaped mirrors, edged with brass filigree, and Sören affixed them to his crown last, on the middle three spines of his crown. At the end the children were all modeling their crowns and Sören put on his, twirling to giggles and oohs and ahhs, the beads swaying as he moved, when he noticed Van standing in the doorway, smiling fondly.  
  
"Er," Sören said. "It's not 1:30 yet..."  
  
"It's close enough."  
  
The parents were starting to come in to collect their children, with a few who lived nearby walking home by themselves. Van waited in the hall until the room was clear, and then he came in and gave Sören a quick kiss.  
  
"I feel so silly right now," Sören said, crinkling his nose, biting his lower lip.  
  
Van stroked his face. "It's very you."  
  
Sören laughed. He put the crown down on a safe place on one of the tables so he could clean up - there was a lot to put away. Van helped, two sets of hands making it go faster, and then when the room was cleaned up, Sören gestured to the door. "Shall we?"  
  
Van put the crown back on Sören's head, making him laugh again, and took his hand.  
  
Their first stop was in town, to pick up a frame for the pastel drawing Van had made Sören last week, so he could hang it somewhere. Then they visited Laufás, a turf house mentioned in the settlement records of Iceland from 874-930, and rebuilt in 1866. There was also a church which had been there since 1865, and was open to the public. Van and Sören, hand-in-hand, walked around the cluster of turf houses, and into and around the church, which had a beautiful pulpit.  
  
"There's a lot of these country churches around," Sören said. "We used to be a very religious people, not so much anymore." He laughed softly. "Though a lot of us still believe in  _huldufólk_  - what you'd call elves. Funny how that works. Most of these old churches, they were built on pagan sites where people left offerings for the  _huldufólk_. People sensed some sort of power there."  
  
"You're not religious at all, I take it."  
  
"Well, on paper I'm Lutheran, as it's the state religion, but I'm not observant or anything, I guess you could say I'm agnostic. I think even if I wanted to believe in something, my aunt Katrín was so much of a religious fanatic that she completely turned me off to it. Though she was a bit of a hypocrite, too." Sören frowned, then. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be spoiling the beautiful day talking about -"  
  
"Sören." Van's voice was a caress. He took Sören's chin in his hand, tilted Sören's face to his. "I care. If you need to get it out..."  
  
"I don't know what Alejandro has told you, but my mother died when I was six - I found her dead body, and I was raised by my father's sister and her husband. They drank. They were... violent."  
  
"Where are they now?"  
  
"They're both dead."  _I murdered one of them._  
  
A few minutes of silence, and then Van said, "This Justin you mentioned last week... it's common for people who were abused, growing up, to end up with abusive partners."  
  
Sören nodded. "It was a textbook case. Sometimes I still hate myself for not leaving sooner, not fighting back more, especially when -" His voice trailed off before he could finish with  _when he raped me_.  
  
"It's a common tactic of abusers, to break their victim into not fighting back." Van gave Sören a small, sad smile. "I know a bit about it."  
  
"You...?"  
  
"I will spare you the details, but yes, it's something I endured, in my younger days." Van squeezed Sören's hand. "I'm rather surprised I'm telling you any of this, I normally don't confide such details in others." Sören heard the words  _I don't show my weakness; my heart was destroyed a long time ago_  in the back of his head.  
  
"Well," Sören said, "I understand now why I felt safe with you on that first night, even though I had no reason to trust a stranger - the opposite, in fact. We had that same vibe, I guess." Sören leaned in to give Van a soft kiss. "And I wanted to take care of you the other night. Make you feel the same sort of safety and caring that you showed me. So maybe that's why you're opening up now, when you usually don't."  
  
"You have a beautiful heart. It shines through in your work. It shines through in what I've seen of you with others. Like your class that I walked in on."  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. "I still can't believe you saw me being such a dork."  
  
Van took Sören's face between his hands and kissed him deeply.  
  
They got back in the Bentley, and drove through the countryside. They got out here and there to walk around, seeing the beauty of the rural north of Iceland, vibrant green in the summertime, up close; there was a stretch of farms, and Sören showed Van the farm that used to belong to his maternal grandparents and had been in his mother's family since the 1600s, and had been sold to a younger family in the 1980s. They still kept goats and Icelandic ponies. The new owners were around, and after Sören explained who he was to them, he got to pet the ponies, making happy noises like a big kid. He felt self-conscious about it later, as they headed back to the Bentley, but Van seemed to enjoy his enthusiasm, petting him on the way.  
  
Out on the road again, they approached a roadside stall that had fresh strawberries and cream - Sören assumed this was where Van had gotten their treat last week - and after buying a container Van drove them to a place, where they could sit in the fresh air and enjoy the simple pleasure of strawberries on a summer day in the lush green hills, dappled with arctic wildflowers. They dipped strawberries in cream and fed each other, like lovers, licking and sucking each other's fingers. At the end there was a little bit of cream left in the container, and Sören dipped his fingers into the cream and stuck them in Van's mouth, then kissed him hard, savoring the sweetness of the fresh cream and the lingering sweetness from the strawberries.  
  
He wanted to taste something else too, finding himself unbuttoning Van's shirt, kissing his neck. Van helped, taking off Sören's T-shirt, undoing his belt. Sören was so far gone with lust that he didn't care that they were out in the open and, though no one was around right now, tourists might come by and catch them in the act. When they were completely naked, Van produced a small bottle of lube he'd been carrying, making Sören giggle.  
  
"You were prepared, I see," Sören said.  
  
"Hoping, yes." Van kissed Sören's neck, and then lay on his back in the grass, pulling Sören down on top of him.  
  
For a few minutes they kissed, hands roaming over each other, hard cocks rubbing together. Then Van took them both into his fist, stroking slowly, his free hand reaching around Sören, to push into him with slick fingers. Sören moaned, and kissed him harder.  
  
When they were both ready - and Van took his sweet time, teasing them both - Sören sank down on Van's cock, impaling himself, giving a wild cry when Van bottomed out inside him. His hands on Van's shoulders, rubbing down over his chest and and back up - lingering on the nipples, thumbs and fingers rolling in lazy circles - Sören rode him slowly, sweetly, crying out into the blue sky, the wind, the sun, with each roll of their hips. Nothing felt more  _right_  than the two of them making love out here in the beauty of nature, being beautiful together, their passion for each other as primal and lush as the landscape itself. Van's hands explored Sören, at last taking his cock into one hand, caressing with the other, and towards the end, stroking Sören's face, his curls, Sören sucking his fingers, moaning around them.  
  
They made it last as long as they could, slow and languid, until the heat between them was too much and Sören rode him hard, leaning down to kiss him again and again, Van's arms wrapped around him, his fingers playing over the outline of the phoenixes on his back as if he'd committed it to memory. Right on that edge, Van kissed, licked and nibbled Sören's neck, growling, as Sören bucked on top of him, whimpering, gasping "oh god, oh god, Van, oh god, oh fuck..."  
  
"Yes, beauty." Van nipped the sweet spot where the neck meets the shoulder, and then tilted Sören's head to his so they could kiss once more, kissing like they were drowning and this was the air they needed to live. His fingers pulled one of Sören's nipple rings, making Sören cry out into the kiss. Their eyes met, and Van sucked Sören's lower lip between his, and ground out, "Come with me."  
  
"Van! Oh, Van...  _Ég er að koma, elskan._ "  
  
" _Sören._ "  
  
Sören's cum painted Van's body, and some of the nearby wildflowers. Sören groaned with satisfaction as he felt Van shoot inside him, his hole throbbing, clenching and grasping, milking Van's cock to the last drop.  
  
Van pulled Sören close, holding him tight, rocking him a little, petting his curls; Sören sighed as he felt Van's lips in his curls, raining soft kisses. Sören listened to their heartbeats thundering together, and then there was just the radiant, melting bliss, like they were one with the land out here, something in them giving life to the hills; the grass and the wildflowers seemed to be super-saturated in color for a moment, the air shimmering around them.  _Funny what tricks on the mind endorphins will play,_  Sören thought to himself, habit from his medical training, even though he knew from his experience as a Force user that the Living Force was just as valid of an explanation.  
  
Sören once again wondered if Van wasn't at least a little Force sensitive.  _At the very least, he brings it out more strongly in_  you.  
  
Sören snuggled into him, breathed in the clean scent of his hair, like rain and spice, and thought to himself,  _I could fall in love with him._  
  
_A small part of me already has._  
  
It made no sense, they didn't know each other well, but there it was. And Sören felt himself laughing at the absurdity of it.  
  
After a moment Van noticed his silent, shaking laughter. "Hm?"  
  
"Oh..." Sören grinned up at him. "I was just thinking... I don't even know your last name."  
  
Van smiled back. He planted a kiss on Sören's forehead. "Apollyon."  
  
"That doesn't sound Russian."  
  
"It's an assumed name."  
  
"Ah, OK." Sören nodded; it wasn't unheard of for abuse victims to take new names as a way of distancing themselves from their families.  
  
They drove some more through the countryside before Van dropped Sören off at home. They lingered in front of the cabin.  
  
"So I'll see you on Friday for ceramics," Sören said.  
  
Van nodded. "You will."  
  
"Do you want to come the whole day, for pastels that morning, or...?"  
  
"I'll just come for the ceramics class." Van gave Sören a wicked grin. "I wouldn't be able to resist you if I was there for the whole day."  
  
"Promises, promises." Sören leaned in to give him a little kiss. "I'll see you on Friday afternoon, then."  
  
"You will." Van blew Sören a kiss on his way out of the car, and Sören crinkled his nose and gave a happy little giggle before he strutted in.  
  
Dooku was out with Alejandro, walking Auli, which wasn't a surprise. Sören was tired from not having slept last night, but he was also feeling a high from the afternoon, the beauty of nature, the passionate lovemaking in the grass.  
  
He sat in front of the canvas and looked at it again. He knew what it needed now. He began to paint himself - in his mind's eye he was straddling Van, the fingers of one hand playing down Van's chest, ready to take the hard cock offered to him. The jeweled leash wrapped around Van's hand.  
  
But before he could get too far into painting himself, he added another detail. He started working on a patch of flowers, as a reminder of what to do to the rest when he got there. The flowers were made of fire, glowing with their own light.  
  
_There. Time for a nap._  
  
_  
  
  
The rest of the week seemed to crawl - Sören was nervous about the meeting with Alejandro on Friday night, even though yes he'd given Alejandro a blank slate and said they wouldn't be having the serious discussion about old history and hurts just yet. But, Sören had the painting to distract himself, which he worked on feverishly in his spare time. He managed to get some more normal sleep hours in, after his painting binge on Sunday and Monday, but he was still consumed, in a way painting had not consumed him in some time.  
  
On Thursday night, he realized he hadn't been in chat for a few days, and even though he'd asked his brother not to worry, he knew his brother would still worry.  
  
**[7:49 PM] Sören:**  not dead  
  
**[7:53 PM] Dagnýr:**  Where the hell have you been?  
  
**[7:55 PM] Sören:**  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)  
  
**[7:56 PM] Dagnýr:**  *facepalm*  
  
**[7:57 PM] Sören:**  I've been painting, too.  
  
**[7:58 PM] Margrét:**  And you saw Van. How was that?  
  
**[7:59 PM] Sören:**  good!  
  
**[8:01 PM] Dagnýr:**  Do you finally know his last name.  
  
**[8:02 PM] Sören:**  it's Rasputin  
  
**[8:03 PM] Sören:**  Russia's Greatest Love Machine  
  
**[8:03 PM] Sören:**  NO LOL  
  
**[8:04 PM] Sören:**  it is my ringtone for him, though  
  
**[8:05 PM] Margrét:**  Awww, no Chiki Briki hardbass?  
  
**[8:07 PM] Sören:**  nah  
  
**[8:07 PM] Sören:**  but yes, I know his last name! it's Apollyon, which is a weird surname for a Russian I guess, but OK  
  
**[8:09 PM] Dagnýr:**  wait  
  
**[8:09 PM] Dagnýr:**  waaaaiiit  
  
**[8:09 PM] Dagnýr:**  This is  _Van Motherfucking Apollyon_?  
  
**[8:12 PM] Sören:**  uh, yeah? is he famous or smth  
  
**[8:14 PM] Dagnýr:**  He owns Apollyon Enterprises.  
  
**[8:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  It's a Fortune 500 company.  
  
**[8:16 PM] Dagnýr:**  Our school got a very large grant from them.  
  
**[8:18 PM] Sören:**  I see  
  
**[8:18 PM] Sören:**  so I'm dating a millionaire  
  
**[8:21 PM] Dagnýr:**  No Sören, you're not.  
  
**[8:21 PM] Dagnýr:**  You're dating a  _billionaire_. This is, for perspective, as big a deal if you were dating Elon Musk or Bill Gates.  
  
**[8:24 PM] Sören:**

[Image: A cartoon dog sitting in a room on fire, drinking coffee, his face melting off, captioned "This is fine. I'm okay with the events that are unfolding currently. That's okay, things are going to be okay."]

 

 **[8:28 PM] Dooku:**  That's... interesting.  
  
**[8:28 PM] Dooku:**  We had a brief conversation where I asked him what he did and he said, I quote, "I run a cleaning service."  
  
**[8:31 PM] Dagnýr:**  He was probably making a funny.  
  
**[8:33 PM] Dooku:**  Or a euphemism.  
  
**[8:35 PM] Dagnýr:**  ?  
  
**[8:37 PM] Dooku:**  ...never mind.  
  
**[8:38 PM] Margrét:**  LOL WTF is our lives, our brother lives in backwater Iceland and is surprise-dating a billionaire. What's next?  
  
**[8:40 PM] Sören:**  next, we'll find out he's an alien  
  
**[8:40 PM] Sören:**  I'm fine with that so long as I get an anal probe  
  
**[8:42 PM] Dagnýr:**

****

[Image: Jack Black is holding a sign that says STOP next to Elmo.]

 

 **[8:44 PM] Sören:**  so hey if it's all the same to you I'd rather not talk about me dating a super rich guy  
  
**[8:45 PM] Sören:**  I liked him before I knew he was CEO of some Fortune 500 company and I really don't care about his money  
  
**[8:45 PM] Sören:**  let's talk about something more interesting than money, like  
  
**[8:46 PM] Sören:**  speaking of aliens  
  
**[8:46 PM] Sören:**  how's that elf genealogy thing coming along?  
  
**[8:48 PM] Dagnýr:**  I am making progress.  
  
**[8:49 PM] Dagnýr:**  I am in the early 1700s now, and about to leave the 1700s and get into the 1600s.  
  
**[8:52 PM] Dagnýr:**  Here is a  _fascinating_  piece of info that all but confirms something is going to turn up soon-ish - did you know our family used to be the vicars of the church in Akureyri? It changed hands in the 1800s, but that church was ours for a LONG time, because...  
  
**[8:52 PM] Dagnýr:**   _apparently_  
  
**[8:53 PM] Dagnýr:**  it was to cleanse "the sin of witchcraft" from our family by "serving God"  
  
**[8:54 PM] Dagnýr:**  So my gut tells me that real soon now, I'm going to find the supposed "witch" ancestor.  
  
**[8:55 PM] Dagnýr:**   _Unfortunately_  I have to put the research on hold for a few days because Nicole! is! pregnant! and we're gonna be helping her get some financial, medical, legal stuff squared away.  
  
**[8:57 PM] Sören:**  so the IVF worked?  
  
**[8:58 PM] Dagnýr:**  Yup. I am going to be a father. Due date is early March.  
  
**[8:58 PM] Sören:**  Pisces children  
  
**[8:59 PM] Sören:**  Alejandro is a Pisces LOL  
  
**[9:01 PM] Sören:**  I apologize in advance for all the tissues you're gonna need for those kids  
  
**[9:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  I love how you assume it's going to be a multiple birth.  
  
**[9:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  I also love how we're all science-y and talk about our horoscopes like that shit is real.  
  
**[9:03 PM] Sören:**  you talk about elves like they're real  
  
**[9:04 PM] Sören:**  it's harmless fun  
  
**[9:04 PM] Sören:**  and on the note of fun, I have a painting to finish, so I'll be logging off now  
  
**[9:06 PM] Sören:**  night, everyone  
  
**[9:07 PM] Dagnýr:**  *hugs*  
  
**[9:08 PM] Margrét:**  Night! <3  
  
_  
  
  
On Friday morning, Dooku took Sören to the studio; Van would be taking Sören back later before Sören's appointment with Alejandro. Sören had the finished canvas wrapped up, held on his lap on the trip into town.  
  
"Well," Dooku said, "have fun, my love."  
  
Sören kissed the tip of his nose. "I'll see you later."  
  
Dooku reached out to affectionately tousle Sören's hair, and Sören, feeling a sudden rush of passion, kissed Dooku hard enough to take his breath away. The next few minutes were spent kissing hungrily and groping, before Dooku rasped, "We had better stop before you end up being, er, late. Or caught."  
  
Sören trailed little kisses along the edge of his beard. "I love you."  
  
Dooku looked into his eyes, took Sören's hand, squeezed and kissed it. "I love you too. Now run along." He gave Sören's ass a playful swat as Sören hopped out of the jeep, and Sören shook his ass in response on the way out to the studio.  
  
For the pastel class, Sören found himself drawing his mother as a young girl, with one of the Icelandic ponies he'd seen at the old family farm earlier in the week. He felt compelled to put a flower crown in her hair, and one of the nice things about soft pastels was that you could create a bit of a glowing effect, as he did now, to evoke nostalgia and a sort of reverence for her, and the bright energy he always remembered around her when she sang or did crafts.  
  
Looking at the picture made him suddenly sad, and on the break between his pastel and ceramics class, he got on the laptop he kept at the studio for business purposes - even though he didn't care about Van's money, curiosity got the better of him and he Googled Apollyon Enterprises.  
  
He wasn't surprised to find no pictures of Van anywhere online, and indeed there were some remarks on different sites about Van Apollyon being "reclusive" and preferring to conduct business through agents as much as possible, wanting to keep a low profile - that made sense to Sören, and seemed why Van could get away with vacationing here in rural Iceland without attracting notice. He registered not quite surprise, but a visceral, hard-to-describe response when he read about the various charitable programs that Apollyon Enterprises had set up - not the only thing the multi-billion company did with its fortune, but they were more charitable than most, with drug rehabilitation clinics, homeless shelters, job training centers for the impoverished and at-risk youth.  
  
Van arrived a little earlier than the other students, but not so early that they had much time to talk before the class started. Sören showed Van how to do a trim of the bowl he'd thrown last week - the other students doing the trim had done it before and didn't need as much hands-on help. Sören went around the room, offering advice and assistance to those who were working on the wheels, and commenting on the glazing job that others were doing. Towards the end of the class, Sören himself got on one of the pottery wheels, feeling a little wound up with the information in the back of his head - not wanting this to change things between them; shaping the wet clay on the spinning wheel relaxed them. He was still there when Van was the last in the room.  
  
Van came over to him, sat down across from him, and put his hands over Sören's as Sören had put his hands over Van's last week. Sören felt the electricity surge between them, his breath catching in his throat as their eyes met.  
  
"I love watching you create," Van said. "It's intoxicating."  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip, heat flooding his cheeks. "I love creating." He grinned. "It's intoxicating. It's... addictive, actually."  
  
"There are worse drugs."  
  
"Yes, there are." Sören sat up - his bowl was the way he wanted it, now. "Van."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"...I know who you are."  
  
Van raised an eyebrow.  
  
"My brother had to tell me... I live under a rock up here in the country, I had no idea about Apollyon Enterprises or anything." Sören looked at the bowl, and back at Van. "Just for the record... I'm not interested in you for your money. I know you've probably heard that before, but -"  
  
Van waved a hand dismissively. "If I thought you were only interested in me for my money I wouldn't waste my time." He reached out to caress Sören's face. "It is as you said. You live in a rural area. You live a simple life. There is depth there, but of your own making. I never for a minute thought you were motivated financially."  
  
"No, I'm not." Sören reached out to take Van's hands, and remembered his own hands were covered in clay. "Er... let me wash up for a minute?"  
  
Van nodded.  
  
Sören took care of his bowl, then went to the bathroom to take care of business and clean up, and when he came back into the art room Van was still sitting there, waiting. "I'm glad you understand," Sören said. "I panicked a little when my brother told me you're a big-time CEO, because I like where things have been going, and..."  
  
"It's fine, Sören. All I ask of you is that you not publicize matters, you have surely found out as well that I deliberately keep a low profile."  
  
Sören nodded. "And I'm fine with that. More than fine with that. I like the simple little life I have out here. I never thought I'd want to come back to Akureyri again, when I was younger, I moved to Reykjavik as soon as I could, but then after a couple years in London I  _craved_  what I'd lost. You've seen but a little of the land here. There are all these places that were my refuge, growing up in the hell I lived through, the land soothed my broken spirit. It's helped me find myself again. So I don't want to become some... paparazzi-dodging, jet-setting... whatever." He laughed softly, and sang a lyric from Kate Bush. " _Do I look for those millionaires | Like a Machiavellian girl would | When I could wear a sunset? | Mmm, yes._ "  
  
The words  _Yes indeed, I can see why he still loves you all these years later_  flitted across the back of Sören's mind, and he blinked, not used to Van broadcasting that clearly. Of course it turned his attention to Alejandro, and that pang of still missing him - Alejandro had been wealthy also, and Sören had enjoyed traveling with him, but their focus had always been on the lush little world they created together of art and music, the beauty of nature, simple pleasures, quiet moments, hours of sex that left them as shattered as if they'd been scorched by the sun itself. If Sören had wanted to move back to Akureyri, then, he had no doubt Alejandro would have willingly taken him there.  
  
_I wonder if things would have been at all different if so.  
  
...Don't think about that now._  
  
"I did note your company does a lot of charity work," Sören said. "And that... warmed my heart."  
  
"I dislike suffering and injustice."  
  
"You have that in common with my husband. It's... quite an attractive trait, to me." Sören smiled. "You're not just beautiful on the outside, but you have a beautiful heart, Van."  
  
Van didn't smile back. He was starting to look at Sören like he was dinner; Sören felt a frisson down his spine.  
  
Sören picked up the wrapped canvas that he'd brought in with him. "I have something for you. I feel almost self-conscious giving this to you now, considering you have enough money to buy a fucking Van Gogh original and I'm just this guy who paints -"  
  
"Sören." Van's voice was stern. "Your art is exquisite. I wouldn't have told you it was beautiful just to be nice to you." Another broadcast.  _What that filth Justin did to you..._  
  
Sören didn't recall getting into enough detail with Van where he would have known Justin put down his art, among other things, but... now was not the time to poke all of that. He put the canvas in Van's hands and he unwrapped it gently, reverently. "Anyway, here you go. You're beautiful, and I wanted to express that to you somehow."  
  
The finished product was Van in the silk robe, wine in one hand, leash in the other, hard dripping cock beckoning, the jewelled leash terminating in a collar around Sören's neck, with the collar bearing a pendant of the flaming star that had been a recurring motif in his work for years. Sören was straddling Van's thighs but not yet his cock, fingers on Van's bare chest against his heart, and in the other hand he held a flame, conjured as if by magic. The Botanical Garden of Akureyri had been transformed into something magical, all the flowers aflame, glowing. The sky above them was space, stars, nebulas, a supernova.  
  
Van just stared at the painting for a moment, wordless, barely breathing. Sören felt nervous, like a small child who had just answered a question on a verbal exam of which they were unsure and were waiting to be told whether or not they were correct. Van continued to stare at the painting, then looked at Sören, not saying anything, and back at the painting. Sören shifted his weight from one foot to the other.  
  
Finally Sören couldn't take it anymore. "Do you like it? I can do it over again if you -"  
  
Van put the painting down on the table - gingerly yet somehow a little roughly as well - and then Sören was in his arms, and he was kissing him hard enough to make Sören whimper into the kiss, turning into putty in his hands.  
  
Van reached for Sören's belt. "I hope you don't interpret this as me thinking you're only good for a quick fuck, because that's not true at all," he rasped, "but I want you NOW." He nipped Sören's neck, and yanked his jeans down.  
  
Sören found himself pushed down on the art table. Sören opened to him, panting "yes, take me," as Van readied him with slick fingers. With Sören's legs on his shoulders, Van standing up, poised at the edge of the table, Van took him hard and fast, Sören slamming his hips right back at Van, fucking himself on Van's cock as good as Van was giving it, screaming at the top of his lungs with each thrust, each  _delicious_  thrust, that cock hitting his prostate just right, getting him on the edge right away and keeping him there, excruciatingly sensitive, the sensation building and building. The slap of their flesh made them even more wanton for it, the sound lusciously obscene. At last their eyes met, neither of them able to hold back any longer. Van took Sören's slick, dripping cock into his hand and stroked in rhythm with his thrusts, Sören's noises louder and even more animalistic, the moment feeling like an eternity.  
  
"Come for me, Sören. Burn for me."  
  
"Van! Oh,  _skít, ríða_ , Van,  _VAN!_ " And Sören let out one last wordless wail as he climaxed, shooting all over Van - making a mess on the shirt Van hadn't taken off in his fevered rush - shooting on the ceiling. Laughter bubbled through him, like a waterfall, like a volcano erupting. The laughter made his orgasm even more euphoric, and then he stopped laughing when he heard Van cry out his name, felt the hot cum rush deep inside him.  
  
They needed to catch their breath, both men shaking.  
  
Sören could have passed out from the intensity of his orgasm, but he needed to get home soon, Alejandro was due to arrive at five. Van helped Sören put his boxer-briefs and jeans back on, since Sören was still wobbly, and as Sören sat on the edge of the art table, he reached out and squeezed Van, who held him tight, tenderly kissing his forehead.  
  
"Did you like the painting?" Sören squeaked out.  
  
Van laughed. "My appreciation goes beyond mere like, beauty. 'Like' seems rather an insult to such a masterpiece." He twined a stray curl around his finger. "I will have to show you how much I appreciate it tomorrow night."  
  
"Mmmmmm. Please."  
  
  
_  
  
Sören was walking funny when Van dropped him off. He could already see Alejandro coming down the street. He ducked into the cabin, where Dooku was making something delicious from the smell of things. Sören had worked up an appetite, and flomped onto the couch, his stomach growling hard enough to scare Snúdur when he came up for pettings. Sören laughed aloud at this, the cat giving him a dirty look, until there was a knock at the door.  
  
Dooku answered it. "Alejandro," he said warmly, smiling. "Come in."  
  
Alejandro gave him a genuine smile in return, and then a smaller, shy smile at Sören. "Hi," he said.  
  
"Hi yourself," Sören said. He gestured to the rocking chair across from the couch, and Alejandro sat down.  
  
"Whatever you're making, it smells good," Alejandro told Dooku.  
  
"It's sarmale with mamaliga. Romanian dishes." Sarmale was stuffed cabbage leaves, and mamaliga was polenta mixed with cheese and sour cream.  
  
"Oh god, sarmale." Sören groaned with pleasure. "PUT IT IN MY FACE."  
  
Dooku chuckled. "Soon, darling."  
  
Dooku brought Alejandro tea without being asked - Sören noted Dooku knew his preference, and found that interesting, but didn't remark on it. He resumed petting his cat, and there was an awkward moment of silence while Alejandro drank his tea, before putting it down and he and Sören just looked at each other for a moment.  
  
"So," Sören said. "I take it you've worked everything out this week."  
  
"First things first - I have a shipment coming to the studio tomorrow afternoon. A dozen guitars, a dozen keyboards. I am limiting each instrument to a dozen students each, so that's room for twenty-four people if some take one and some take the other. This is not just for the practicality of renting instruments for the remainder of the summer, but also because there is a practical upward limit of how much of a student load I can take at one time and give everyone a proper amount of individual attention. This is quite a bit more specialized."  
  
"I understand. And it's coming tomorrow afternoon?"  
  
Alejandro nodded.  
  
Sören tossed him the keys to the studio. "I want these  _back_  before classes start on Monday. I will not be available tomorrow evening -" He noticed Alejandro tried to keep his expression neutral, but there was a telltale furrow in his brow and Sören could feel him bristling a little.  _Good._  Sören wanted to kick himself for having that reaction, not wanting to be petty.  
  
"Alejandro and I are having dinner tomorrow while you're out," Dooku said matter-of-factly.  
  
"Oh. OK." That made Sören feel a little better about leaving Dooku alone for the night while he was overnight with Van at the hotel.  
  
"So he can give me the keys," Dooku said.  
  
"That works for me." Sören nodded, and Alejandro gave a small nod. Then Sören went on, "So as I mentioned, starting this upcoming week I'm on a Monday through Friday schedule for the rest of the summer. Fridays are one of my two ceramics days and that's, in the interest of disclosure, when Van comes by the studio, and starting next week he and I would like to change our date night to Friday -"  
  
"I was already thinking Monday through Thursday, which gives me a three-day weekend."  
  
"OK." Sören nodded. "And I assume they'd be on the same time frame as me, otherwise I need to make spare keys for you to lock up when I'm gone -"  
  
"Same time frame. Which is also what I wanted to talk to you about. If we're working a similar schedule, and we live on the same street, there's really no point in us taking two separate vehicles to work. It would be a bit more ecologically friendly if we rode together."  
  
Sören sighed, and nodded. "You're right."  
  
"So I'll come pick you up and bring you home each day, if that works for you?"  
  
"That's fine."  
  
Alejandro handed over a tablet, where he had an outline of when his classes would be held - there was the occasional gap where he'd have his class going while Sören was on break between classes, or Sören would have his class during Alejandro's break, but otherwise there was a similar enough schedule to justify carpooling.  
  
Before Sören could hand the tablet back to Alejandro, he said, "Price list is on page 2."  
  
Sören went over it - it was comparable to what he'd be charging for his classes. He nodded. "That looks fine." He handed the tablet back to him.  
  
"I'll be starting registration this weekend and keeping it open through the first week or until the slots fill up."  
  
"Good. I'll get everything up on the website tonight, and e-mail the students with the link, you'll probably be full before the weekend is over." Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "Er, you have a little bio I can put up, so people don't just ask 'who is this random guy'. Like credentials.  _I_  know you can play, but -"  
  
"I'll type something up when I go back, and e-mail it to you?"  
  
"OK." Sören realized he needed to unblock Alejandro's account from his Gmail. "Same e-mail address as before?"  
  
"No. But do you have the same e-mail address as before?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Then I can still get it to you. I'd prefer to not put a picture on the website if it's all the same to you."  
  
"That's fine by me."  _I'd be tempted to stalk my own site just to stare at it._  Sören wanted to crawl into a panel in the wooden floor and die. He couldn't believe he was still having this Pavlovian reaction to Alejandro, even sitting across from him in a simple black T-shirt and dark jeans he looked luscious. He would be in his early forties now and hadn't aged a day since Sören had last seen him, to boot. Not that he minded aged men, but Alejandro's hair was still as raven-black as before, his skin flawless, though his silver-grey eyes seemed sadder than before.  
  
"Oh, one thing you should be aware of," Sören said, trying not to notice Alejandro's arresting beauty. "I'll be closing the studio from Thursday, August 8th through Monday, August 12th, because Nico and I are going to Reykjavik to attend my sister's wedding and this includes travel time and recovery time. We'll re-open on Tuesday August 13th."  
  
"OK." Alejandro nodded. "Nicolae told me Margrét was getting married."  
  
"To my best friend Frankie, who I met in London."  
  
"What's he like?"  
  
Sören snickered. "Frankie's a she. Pint-sized punk chick, tough as nails but also an incredibly kind, warm, funny person. We lived together in London. She and my sister hit it off right away when they met."  
  
"She's a dear," Dooku said.  
  
"Nico kind of adopted her." Sören grinned. Then he leaned back. "So, that's happening... and then Vigdís and Páll are coming back on Friday August 16th..."  
  
"I'll be checking into the Hotel Akureyri then and stay an additional week to finish the summer classes."  
  
"That's good of you." Sören refrained from asking  _and what then_  - now was not the time for that discussion.  
  
Dooku brought Alejandro a plate, and then he went back into the kitchen. Alejandro waited, and a moment later Dooku brought out food for Sören, carrying a plate for himself as well. He sat down on the couch next to Sören. Snúdur came over and sniffed, and Sören scooped him up and gently put him down on the floor. The cat hopped back up and Sören put him back down, and this repeated a few times until Dooku said, " _No,_ " in a stern voice. Snúdur meowed as if to say "But DAAAAD..."  
  
"You have food in your dish, and cats don't eat this," Dooku told him, as if Snúdur understood what he was saying.  
  
Alejandro shook with silent laughter.  
  
"Is Auli this bad?" Sören asked.  
  
"He's worse." Alejandro grinned.  
  
" _MOWWWWWWWWWWW._ "  
  
"I take that back."  
  
Sören snickered. He ate his first bite of food and made a big exaggerated show of enjoying it - which he did - to tease the cat. "Mmmmmmm, this is soooo goooood, no wonder you want this instead of poor sad old cat food in your dish."  
  
"MOW."  
  
Dooku chuckled. "Sören, you're terrible."  
  
"I know. But you see how much I spoil that cat. His food is more expensive than ours."  
  
Dooku patted Sören. "Yes, you take very good care of the baby."  
  
Snúdur stalked off and they heard the sounds of crunching, the cat resigned to eat the high-quality dry food in his bowl.  
  
Alejandro tried a few bites of the meal. "This is delicious."  
  
Dooku beamed. "It's a family recipe."  
  
"I'd like the recipe, if you don't mind writing it down for me...?"  
  
"Alejandro's no slouch with cooking," Sören told him. "He's on par with you, he makes  _the best_  Spanish and Portuguese food. His  _feijoada_  and  _bacalhau_  and  _empadão_  and  _caldo verde_  is to fucking die for."  _I was a big fan of your chorizo._  Sören's face flushed, blinking in disbelief that the off-color joke had been in his head at all, that Alejandro could still get his mind going places.  _Damn him._  
  
"I don't know if it's the best," Alejandro said, "but thank you." He sipped his tea. "It's... rather touching you still remember that these years later."  
  
"I remember a lot of things." Sören gave him a pointed look.  _The way we used to feed each other like new lovers, even when we'd been together for years. The way we ate and drank wine or whiskey in front of the fireplace before making love there, the way you took me on the kitchen table after dinner some nights. The way we ate fresh fruit and whipped cream and licked honey off each other's naked bodies. The way you would whisper to me in Portuguese as you teased every inch of my body with your fingers and tongue, the way you swore in Portuguese when you climaxed..._  
  
Sören shoveled food in his mouth, looking away.  _So much for a blank slate._  
  
"Perhaps when we get together tomorrow we could cook together?" Dooku asked.  
  
"I'd enjoy that," Alejandro said.  
  
"Excellent. I'll bring some groceries over."  
  
Dooku talked a bit about learning to cook from his Romanian mother - even though he grew up in a time when sexism was much more rampant in society, his mother still thought cooking was not "woman's work" but everyone should know how to make decent food for themselves. "Learning from her in the kitchen was one of the only times my mother seemed to tolerate me," he said. "I suppose it's why I take comfort in cooking for others, it's one of the few happy memories I have from my childhood."  
  
Alejandro frowned. "That's rough."  
  
"My upbringing was rather difficult. I'll spare you the details while we're having a pleasant evening."  
  
Sören reached out to rub Dooku's shoulder, and squeezed; he leaned in to kiss the older man's cheek. He knew the unhappy story of Dooku's childhood, and how guarded he was with talking about his past. That he was letting down his guard with Alejandro, even just a little, was strangely comforting to him. Dooku needed friends, he had difficulty letting people in close - Sören was still surprised he'd managed to get through.  
  
Everyone had seconds, finishing up what Dooku made, and then when Sören got up to do dishes, Alejandro asked Dooku, "Shall we take Auli on his nightly excursion?"  
  
"Yes." Dooku walked him to the door. "I'll see you in awhile, love," he said to Sören, waving. Sören waved back.  
  
Before Alejandro could step out the door, he asked Sören, "I'll pick you up at ten AM on Monday?"  
  
Sören nodded. "That's fine."  
  
"All right. Have a good weekend."  
  
"You too." Sören managed a smile.  
  
Through the window over the sink, Sören watched them walk until they were out of sight. Their body language was relaxed around each other, like two old friends even though they hadn't known each other that long. As awkward as this still was for Sören to be around his ex, he was grateful that he was providing Dooku with some companionship; he ached for the loneliness his husband had lived through, and more than anything wanted him to be happy, and while he tried to make Dooku happy, he thought it was important for him to have more caring people in his life. Alejandro, too, had experienced some trauma and had a hard time with closeness with others, so it was good they found each other. Sören hoped the friendship continued to last even when the summer was over and his neighbors came back from the States.  
  
_Maybe I can convince Alejandro to stay in Akureyri for awhile._  That would be good for both Alejandro and Dooku.  
  
It had nothing to do with old feelings, whatsoever, not one bit.  
  
_Well, let's get through the next few weeks first._  
  
  
_  
  
  
On Saturday night, Sören got dressed up, wearing a ruffly black shirt, and black leather pants. He put on a little mascara and eyeliner, and added a few drops of Kyoto by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, cherry blossom and anise, which reacted with his skin chemistry to have a very sexual scent on him when it dried.  
  
Dooku gave an appreciative little growl when he saw the finished product. Sören shook his ass, grinning over his shoulder.  
  
"You look good too," Sören said, turning around - Dooku was wearing a dark brown button-down shirt and black trousers, not super dressy but something more than casual. The first couple of buttons were undone to accommodate for the warm summer evening, revealing a little bit of the silver chest hair. Sören had a brief fantasy of unbuttoning his shirt and running his fingers through it, grooming it with slow, teasing licks of his tongue.  
  
_Down, boy._  Nonetheless, Sören leaned in to nuzzle him and caught a whiff of Dooku's cologne - Sören had turned him on to Frederic by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab, which unfortunately was released only once every leap year, so Dooku had to make it last. He was wearing it tonight and not his usual - it was something Dooku normally only wore on special occasions with Sören. Sören had a feeling that he'd made the selection more subconsciously, and he found it interesting, but...  
  
"OK, Van is here." Sören kissed him. "Have fun tonight!" He winked. "Save me some leftovers from you cooking with Alejandro if you can."  
  
"All right." Dooku kissed him back, and squeezed. Then he handed the bag with the collar and leash in it to Sören. "I'll see you tomorrow morning. And then tomorrow night..."  
  
"Ohhh yes."  
  
Dooku playfully slapped Sören's ass, and Sören's laughter rang out as he bounced out of the cabin, giving skritches to the cat on his way out.  
  
Van took him to a seafood restaurant on the coast, with a lovely view of the north Atlantic from their table. But though the food was good, Sören was hungry for something else. Walking along the shore afterwards, it was all Sören could do to not pounce him there on the beach.  
  
As soon as they got in the hotel room, Van slammed Sören up against the wall, the two kissing passionately as they feverishly undressed each other. Once Sören was naked, he pulled out the collar and leash from the bag, putting them in Van's hands, and knelt before him, looking up at him with trust in his eyes.  
  
Van gently put the collar around Sören's neck, and clipped the leash through. He took a moment to stroke Sören's face, pet his curls. Then he tugged the leash, gesturing for Sören to rise. The leash in hand, he pulled Sören along to the bed, and Sören climbed on. Van climbed over him, and for a moment they just looked at each other before Van pulled Sören close, kissed him hard and deep.  
  
"What would you like, milord?" Sören purred, fingers walking over Van's chest.  
  
"You." He pushed Sören back onto the bed, and began kissing his way down. "Your fire." He spread Sören's thighs, licked and nibbled the way he knew Sören liked it. "I am going to make you burn like that supernova you painted." He dipped his tongue into Sören's channel, and Sören cried out, clutching his head, gasping as Van worked his tongue exquisitely slowly. Van watched his every reaction, played with the leash as Sören arched and bucked and howled.  
  
After Van had been down there for close to an hour, Sören was practically sobbing in his need. "Please... take me..."  
  
"Not yet." A playful tug of the leash.  
  
When Van did finally get around to taking him, Sören was so desperate and in heat for it that he clawed and bit, with Van nipping him in return. Sören grabbed his hair, and Van growled into Sören's neck, pulling out, and rolled Sören onto his stomach. Sören thrust his ass out, and Van took him hard, his teeth on the back of Sören's neck near the shoulder, as Sören panted and whimpered, rocking his hips back at Van, wanting to be fucked like an animal. The occasional slaps at his ass made Sören even more feverish; he clutched the slats on the headboard, white-knuckled, as the bed rocked against the wall and the mattress bounced beneath them. Sören came hard, screaming his name, and the guttural, primal noise Van made when he spent into him made Sören clench and throb even harder.  
  
They rested like that for a moment, and then Van tilted Sören's head so they could kiss. As intense as the fucking was, and Sören's orgasm, the kiss stirred him again, and Sören felt Van harden up inside him again. Van pulled out, tugged on the leash, and rolled Sören onto his back, taking a moment to stroke his face, looking into his eyes as he guided his cock to Sören's channel once more. They kissed deeply as Van plunged inside, and Van rocked inside him more slowly this time, Sören panting "yes, yes," in time to his thrusts.  
  
"I want to make you come, and come, and come," Van whispered into his neck.


	21. Tension

 

**Tension**

  
  
  
_Monday_  
  
"Good morning."  
  
Sören managed a thin smile as he climbed into Alejandro's Jaguar, that became a genuine smile when Alejandro handed him a thermos of iced coffee. It was a thoughtful gesture, and one born of knowing from years of experience that Sören was not a morning person. It was a testament of Sören's dedication to his students, his community, and fostering the fire of creation in others that he was willing to go to the studio in the mornings, when left to his own devices he'd be sleeping in till afternoon and stay awake late at night.  
  
"You were right," Alejandro told Sören as he nursed his coffee; Sören's eyebrow went up. "The classes filled before the weekend was over." He laughed softly. "They were full by Sunday morning."  
  
"I told you." Sören grinned.  
  
Sören opened the studio and Alejandro followed behind; they still had a little time before the students showed up. Alejandro had opted to use the community room for his music classes since it had better acoustics. Sören watered the plants in the ceramic pots he'd made, surveying the guitars and electric pianos he'd be renting out, the beginning books of sheet music.  
  
"I still can't believe I'm doing this," Alejandro said.  
  
"You'll do fine."  
  
"If you say so. I don't... as a rule... teach this sort of thing."  
  
"But you learned, once upon a time, did you not?"  
  
"I did but I was a child prodigy. It was different. I learned very quickly." A rueful smile. "I was asked to teach my youngest brothers. It didn't go very well."  
  
"Well of course it didn't, you can't really teach your own family. As much as I love mine, you don't see me telling Dag and Margrét to come down, and my classes aren't even really that formal."  
  
"I suppose."  
  
"Listen, Alejandro, I wouldn't have even asked if I thought you were going to go all Gordon Ramsay on them."  
  
"Gordon Ramsay is a cook, not a musician."  
  
"Same fucking principle at work."  
  
"Simon Cowell would be a better comparison -"  
  
"OK,  _well_..." Sören rolled his eyes and folded his arms. "My point still stands. You  _know_  how I feel about being too hard on people, breaking their spirits. There's constructive criticism and then there's just being mean. I trust you to not be mean."  
  
"I'll try."  
  
"Good. Now, I'll leave you to go over your first lesson plan, as I get my own room set up..."  
  
Sören's first class of the day was oils, and one of the only formal, structured classes he taught, where the class would paint objects or models or landscapes or a re-interpretation of a painting from one of the old masters. Today they were working on "Starry Night" by Van Gogh, Sören's personal favorite painting, and Sören had a pang of nostalgia, thinking about his trip to the Netherlands with Alejandro in 2012. Across the hall, Sören could hear the guitar lesson, where Alejandro was teaching them about the strings and frets, what was where, how to hold the guitar, and how to tune it.  
  
Their classes finished within ten minutes of each other, and then Sören walked across the hall and poked his head in. "Hej," he said.  
  
Alejandro looked up from the beginning guitar book he was reading, and gave a small wave.  
  
"You want anything?" The question hung there, and Sören explained, "I have a mini-fridge."  
  
"Yeah, um... whatever you're having, thank you."  
  
Sören came back a couple minutes later with a Sprite for each of them and sat across from him. "So it went better than expected, já?"  
  
"It did, but it was also an easy enough lesson today."  
  
"You'll do fine."  
  
"You keep saying that." Alejandro looked at the plants in the community room. "I like what you've done with the place. You have a bit of a green thumb."  
  
"Sometimes..." Sören gave him a sly look. "I sing to the plants. I think they like it." A smirk. "You should sing to them, you have a better voice."  
  
"Singing to plants. OK." Alejandro looked at them again. "The pots they're in are lovely."  
  
"I made them."  
  
"Of course you did." Alejandro nodded. "You took up ceramics at some point?"  
  
"London. There's a kiln in back, I usually fire on the weekends. I didn't this past weekend because I was, er, busy." Sören swore he could see a furrow of Alejandro's brow, a set of his jaw, but he worked on his Sprite nonchalantly. "I'll be firing some more this weekend. I have other pots in the two art rooms. Truth be told, I like making ceramics almost as much as I like painting, even though it's a completely different medium and it expresses things differently."  
  
"Your love of the craft shows. Just the glazework you've done on some of those... that one there looks like a sunset." Alejandro's voice was solemn. "It looks like  _that_  sunset, actually."  
  
Sören knew immediately what exactly he was talking about - a moment from when they were living together in Reykjavik, and Sören made him go up on the rooftop with him one winter night and watch the sunset, blazing over a view of the city. It was not the last time they had done so, but it was the first time, and an important, defining moment in their relationship. "Já, I... had that specific sunset in mind."  
  
Their eyes met, and they both looked away.  
  
"And then I planted a bonsai tree in that pot. Kind of... symbolic, when you think about it." Sören's eyes locked with his as he sipped his Sprite.  
  
"So every pot you've done tells a story."  
  
"Já. It's not as immediately obvious as my paintings, and it's more of a private catharsis. Speaking of, have you done the tour?"  
  
"I've looked at a few of them. Not all."  
  
"I don't have everything on display here - some of my work has been sold, some is hanging up at home, a couple pieces are in a closet -"  _The ones of you._  "But it's a good representation of my work, when you get around to it. Some you'll recognize, some was done... after the fact."  
  
"And you have some of your students' pieces hanging up as well," Alejandro said, looking past Sören at one of the walls of the community room.  
  
"Já, I do. It's a source of pride."  
  
Their eyes met again. "I'm really glad to see you doing something you want to do with your life. If I'd had known about it back then..."  
  
"I didn't know I wanted to do this, back then. I didn't start thinking about this until I moved to London, and took that ceramics class, and had some encouragement when I badly needed it. It was a way of paying it forward."  
  
"That sounds like it has a story behind it."  
  
"It does. But today is not that day." It involved the aftermath of Justin, and Sören wasn't ready to talk to Alejandro about that mess. He got up, and took Alejandro's empty can. "I need to prep for my next class."  
  
Alejandro had another guitar class - the same lesson, but a different group of people - and Sören had the acrylic class, freeform. He enjoyed seeing what people came up with out of their own imaginations, offering positive feedback as he went around the room, between working on a small canvas himself. He thought about that sunset, that he'd recreated with the bowl the bonsai tree sat in now. He painted it again, with the tree, but the tree was made of light, looking almost like crystal.  
  
He let it dry on the table with the students' paintings when the class was done, and cleaned up the room. Alejandro's class finished and Sören heard him playing acoustic guitar in there by himself. Alejandro was lost enough in his music that he didn't notice when Sören stood at the door, after his art room was cleaned up and he was ready to go home. Sören watched him for a few minutes before making his presence known.  
  
"Alejandro," he said softly.  
  
Alejandro startled, snapped back to reality.  
  
"Sorry," Sören said. "I'm, ah, ready to go now."  
  
Alejandro nodded. He got up and headed with Sören out to the Jaguar. They drove into the village in silence. "Can you tell your husband I'll meet him for walking Auli in a half-hour?" Alejandro said when they arrived at the cabin.  
  
"I will." Sören nodded. He got out and then he lingered for a moment before walking off. "Have a good night."  
  
"You too."  
  
Sören walked to the door, but before he let himself in, he watched the Jaguar drive down the street, watched it pull into the cottage's driveway and watched Alejandro get out. Watched him go in, Auli greeting him enthusiastically. Sören smiled as he saw the way Alejandro was with the dog.  _He should get a pet._  
  
His thoughts immediately went to the leash and collar that he'd let Dooku and Van play with, and his face burned as he rushed inside the cabin.  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Tuesday_  
  
The first piano lesson was more involved. As with the guitar, everyone went around the room and introduced themselves, in English. Of the six students, two were children.  
  
Then it was time to introduce the piano - Maglor started with the highest and lowest notes, and then the musical alphabet, and then where middle C was. He had everyone find the C's, then the D's, and then where the other notes were. Then it was time to show them how to properly sit, and corrected finger positions.  
  
They played their first song - Maglor tried not to cringe when inevitably, someone hit the wrong note. It was very simple, and then there was a second and a third song to learn, more complicated than the first, but still simple.  
  
They had homework - practicing the two songs, and note naming sheets. The class didn't grumble about homework, and indeed, they were quite positive during the entire lesson. Maglor found himself smiling when it was over.  
  
He came in at the tail end of Sören's watercolor class, where the class was going around the room to show their work, and finally Sören went last. His latest creation was Snúdur, eating from a crystal bowl like royalty. Alejandro's command of Icelandic was nowhere near as fluent as Sören's, but he could tell Sören was telling them about Snúdur's latest incident of begging, and being spoiled. As with the studio, having a cat was good for Sören's soul - once again, he had a nice life up here, one that made him feel guilty for disrupting.  
  
But then Sören flashed him that dazzling smile that took his breath away, and for that moment, the guilt was pushed aside. "There's your teacher now," Sören said to the class in English.  
  
A couple of his guitar students were there and Maglor waved to them.  
  
"I've been practicing," Jónas said.  
  
"Good, keep practicing. You'll have something new to practice tomorrow."  
  
When the class was dismissed, and the students poured out, Maglor walked in to the art room. Sören was putting supplies away, and cleaning up spilled paint. Maglor found himself helping without being asked, though he had to study where Sören kept things.  
  
Then Sören paused for a moment, and said, "Here, I have something for you."  
  
It was a small canvas. Maglor recognized  _that_  sunset, and there was a tree - Gods, how it resembled one of the Two Trees. As always, there was  _something_  about Sören's work... power there, but  _what_.  
  
And it was significant, to be given a piece of art like this, even small. It was like their first meeting, when Sören had heard him play and gifted him, unexpectedly. Their eyes met.  
  
"Thank you," Maglor said.  
  
Sören nodded. "I hope you like it."  
  
"I do. It's... beautiful. I don't have words."  _Putting your gift into words would be an insult. It is beyond what words can express._  A long pause.  
  
"We have a bit before our afternoon classes start, you want to grab lunch?"  
  
Maglor drove them into town, and they had lunch at a sandwich shop. They sat outside, since it was a gorgeous day, and they people-watched together. Though Maglor kept stealing glances at Sören, lost in thought, and no doubt, mixed emotions. He could sense the tension there - wanting friendship, still wanting space to lick his wounds.  
  
But that painting... Maglor took a deep breath. "It means a lot, you know."  
  
Sören was chewing a mouthful of his sandwich - still somehow managed to look adorable doing so - and raised an eyebrow.  
  
"The painting." Maglor looked down. "It's like old times. Only... not."  
  
"I told you I would give you a blank slate, we could try to start over as friends, so... that was a place to start."  
  
"It was quite a place." A pause. "Your work was always good, but it seems like it's improved even more since..."  
  
Sören gave a small smile. "Well, I try. I paint enough that it gives me practice, I guess."  
  
"I'm glad that you're still painting. That you've done so much with your art. You deserve to go far. Someday, I want people to honor your work alongside the old masters."  _I will make sure of that when thou art gone, and I remain, still grieving thee._  
  
"Oh, you flatterer." Sören chuckled. "I wouldn't call it that good -"  
  
"I would. I do."  
  
"Well...  _takk._ " Sören reached out to pat his hand; it sent a jolt through Maglor. "Your music is still beautiful, whatever you were playing yesterday, I didn't recognize it -"  
  
"It's something I've been working on."  
  
"It's good that you're still composing, too."  
  
Maglor sighed. "Truth be told, this is the first time in awhile that I've felt inspired enough to write music again, it started back up when I came here a few weeks ago."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yeah." Maglor brushed hair out of his face. "I, ah." A little nervous laugh. "Hit a dry spell after we."  
  
Sören's eyebrows raised. " _Really._ "  
  
"I still played... old stuff of mine, or covers of other people's work. But I stopped performing publicly, and I stopped composing."  
  
"That's... unfortunate. And also..." Sören sat back in his chair. "The first year after you and I..."  
  
Maglor nodded. He didn't need to say it.  
  
"I couldn't make art at all. Couldn't draw, couldn't paint. Just... completely blocked. Nothing. It was like the fire in me  _died._  I tried, desperately, to get it back. I went clubbing... ah shit, you don't want to hear about it."  
  
_No, I don't._  It was bad enough Vanimórë had his hands on Sören, never mind random strangers not worthy of him... Maglor cringed.  
  
"Anyway," Sören went on. "It was a bad year. A full fucking year. Not being able to make art, it was like having a limb cut off. Like a part of my brain just shut off, altogether. And then that night I met Van. He suggested a change of scenery would do me some good. I went to London. I started painting again."  
  
"I'm... glad it came back to you."  
  
"It took awhile for me to get back in the groove, but já, it came back. I started showing while I was there. Well, I had some shows, then I, ah, stopped for awhile..." Sören looked away. Far away. Maglor could swear he saw Sören shiver, even though it wasn't cold. "Then I started again. It's how I met Nico."  
  
"I see."  
  
"But... it's funny, not funny ha-ha, but funny weird, how once we, um. Split up, we both hit a dry spell. Dryer for you."  
  
"That is indeed."  
  
"I hope that the return of your music lasts," Sören said, meeting his eyes. "You have a rare and precious gift."  
  
They went back to the studio; Maglor had Depeche Mode playing on the way back. When they were minutes away, the building in sight, Sören shot him a grin, his dark eyes twinkling, as if he found something amusing.  
  
"What?"  
  
Sören snickered.  
  
"'Ice Machine' isn't a funny song."  
  
Sören rolled his eyes. "It's... you and Depeche Mode. The more things change, the more some things stay the same."  _It's strangely comforting,_  Sören broadcasted, and patted him again; Maglor restrained the urge to seize him, kiss him hard, knowing it wouldn't end well.  
  
Maglor had his second piano class, repeating the same lesson for different people. When he was done, he watched the end of Sören's class for children - they were sculpting with clay. Sören was in his element, encouraging the kids, smiling, laughing with them, taking joy in their joy.  
  
It made him ache. In another world, Sören would have been a good father. When they were together, Sören knew not to ask him about adopting children, Maglor had made it clear from the beginning they couldn't get married, though deep down, he desperately  _wanted_  to. But he could tell, sometimes, that Sören would have liked that.  _He_  would have liked that. For a brief instant he could see it so clearly, he and Sören, raising twin daughters. Sören's horrible dad jokes. Raising them with art and music and books and nature and a dog and a cat -  
  
_If I wasn't such a miserable failure of a parent._  He thought of Tindómion Maglorion Fëanorion, the son he had not even known he'd sired for too long, meeting him just to see Gil-galad fall, and Tindómion run away Gods knew where, in his grief, never to be seen again.  
  
He closed his eyes against the memory of the silver eyes like his own, the burning bronze hair, the desire for his grown son similar to the way he had desired his own father - though nothing could quite be like his father, only Fingolfin had come close  _and Sören_  - and like with his father, he had tasted and then refused, though with Fëanor it had at least been a handful times, enough to sear his memory, to keep him warm on all those cold, lonely nights for eons, when he had been too lonely for too long to feel much guilt or shame for their sin anymore.  
  
The bronze hair became the vision of  _that_  sunset. He'd never understood why he'd come to Iceland in the first place, over a decade ago - one of the few parts of the world where he hadn't been, yet, almost as if he'd been avoiding it subconsciously.  
  
He opened his eyes and Sören was presenting a sculpture of his mother. Sören sculpted almost as well as he painted.  
  
The sculptures were collected to dry - they'd be painted next week, Maglor picked up in the flurry of Icelandic before Sören dismissed his class.  
  
Maglor was more hesitant with coming in this time, but Sören gestured, and he did. He looked at the sculptures close up, some of which were surprisingly well-done for children, some of which had the skill level one would expect for that age group. And there was of course Sören's sculpture of his mother, close-up, looking more like a saint or a goddess now. It was as if Sören's eyes burned as he delicately ran a finger over the statue. "I can't wait to paint this," he said. "I can already see it."  
  
"You're very good with the children." A pause. "They seem to really love you."  
  
"I love them right back." Sören nodded. "They remind me to have fun with this, even when it tears my heart open."  
  
Their eyes met.  
  
"Anyway, let me clean up in here and we can go, OK?"  
  
Maglor helped him clean up the mess made by a bunch of kids with clay, and then they were off. There was more Depeche Mode on the way home.  
  
_All I ever wanted  
All I ever needed  
Is here in my arms_  
  
Maglor sighed.  _I had that._  
  
He felt like crying when it was time to drop Sören off, not wanting to let him go just yet. He averted Sören's gaze as much as possible. "You want Nico to come by to walk Auli?" Sören asked.  
  
Maglor nodded. "Fifteen minutes."  _Long enough for me to try to pull together._  
  
He cried in the bathroom, washed his face, and when he came out, Dooku was truly a sight for sore eyes. He immediately felt at ease in the elderly man's presence, a welcome distraction.  
  
...a little too welcome. Dooku was starting to feel like home, like family, like something he could not allow.  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Wednesday_  
  
Even though Sören was staunchly not a morning person, having ceramics in the morning put him in a better mood than he'd be otherwise.   
  
Towards the end of the class Sören got on the pottery wheel to demonstrate, and Alejandro's class had finished up and he was there watching as well. Sören felt strangely self-conscious - it was almost too intimate, even though he normally had no problem with others watching him throw. But it wasn't enough to detract from his enjoyment of working clay, shaping it on the spinning wheel.  
  
As Sören's hands molded the clay on the wheel, he found himself philosophizing out loud, in English. "My cousin Ari reads Tarot in Reykjavik. In the Major Arcana, one of the trump cards is the Wheel of Fortune. It represents change. A lot of ancient cultures used wheel symbolism, related to fate as a wheel. And in the Bible, the Judeo-Christian god was said to fashion Adam from clay of the earth. When I bake the pots in the kiln, it is the marriage of earth and fire. Like alchemy. I think about that sometimes when I'm making pottery. How ancient this is, something our human ancestors have been doing for thousands of years, how it was regarded at one time as sacred, holy work, and even if you don't believe in any of that stuff, there's still a kind of magic to it. A reminder that we can shape our own destiny. We can change things. It was a reminder I badly needed when I lived in London, and felt completely hopeless in my life. It was such a simple act, shaping clay, making something both beautiful and useful out of it, but there was power. Art isn't just making pretty things, though it can be that. It's an act of making beautiful moments - even something beautiful out of your pain. Acknowledging and honoring that beauty within you, and consciously bringing it to life. Opening to the power of that, and watching where it takes you. When I started thinking about opening up a school, where people could just come create, could just feel and explore... I wanted all of you to be able to awaken that in yourselves."  
  
Sören looked at Alejandro, whose mouth was slightly open. He looked down at the bowl, which was perfect now. The wheel stopped turning.  
  
When the students left, Sören and Alejandro sat outside, drinking water, enjoying the breeze and the sunshine. They didn't speak.  
  
Sören had a sketching class, the other more formal, structured class, teaching depth and perspective and technique. Sören's eyes kept wandering to Alejandro and his guitar lesson across the hall.  _It's too bad you wouldn't want to be a model for this._  
  
Sören's face burned, even entertaining that thought.  _Yes, we all know it would be for_  the students  _and would have nothing to do with you wanting to look at him.  
  
Shut up._  
  
Sören's class was out before Alejandro's was. He could hear the occasional wrong note, missed rhythm, and when he looked again and saw the pained look on Alejandro's face, though he was trying so very hard to be gentle and patient, Sören couldn't help snickering. Alejandro noticed him noticing, and glared at Sören's silent laughter, which made Sören laugh less quietly.  
  
Finally Alejandro's class was done, and it was time to go back. Depeche Mode was playing in the Jaguar again. Alejandro looked just a little crabby.  
  
"I didn't mean to offend you. It was just..." Sören tried to find the right words in English, and it failed him. "You were cute."  
  
Alejandro's eyebrows went up.  
  
"Well já, listen, just because we're not shagging anymore, doesn't mean I'm blind, and you're cute when you make that face you were making in there."  
  
"I don't even know what to say to that," Alejandro said.  
  
"Nico usually tells me he's not cute when I tell him he's cute."  
  
"There are a lot of words I'd use to describe your husband - elegant, suave... 'cute' is not one of them. He's not cute. Neither am I."  
  
" _God_ , the two of you have so much in common sometimes it's fucking painful." Sören shot him a wicked grin. "And hilarious."  
  
"He's a kindred spirit."  
  
"Mmm, it's good that the two of you are friends. Speaking of... how long before he comes to walk Auli with you?"  
  
"Half hour?"  
  
"OK."  
  
When Sören got inside, Dooku smiled at him, and rose from his desk to greet him with a hug and kiss. The kiss lingered, the two looking into each other's eyes for a moment, and Dooku tenderly stroked Sören's face, before nuzzling him and planting a kiss on Sören's forehead, and then the top of his head, nuzzling his curls. Sören gave a happy sigh and rested his head in Dooku's shoulder for a moment, arms tightening around him.  
  
"How was your day?" Dooku asked, heading into the kitchen to make Sören coffee.  
  
"Good." Sören nodded. "Yours?"  
  
"Productive. I have two-thirds of the novel done."  
  
" _Excellent._  I would like to take time to read what you've got so far, sometime this weekend?"  
  
"All right." Dooku nodded.  
  
"Also, Alejandro says a half-hour."  
  
Dooku nodded again. "I'll freshen up."  
  
_You're always fresh,_  Sören said, but then, he couldn't say he minded being with a man who took care of himself. _Elegant, suave..._  Those words did definitely describe Dooku, though it felt strange to hear Alejandro, of all people, say them.  
  
Sören logged onto Stardew Valley, petting his cat, and when Dooku came out of the bathroom he made Sören's coffee the way he liked it, and brought it to him. Even though Sören was perfectly capable of making his own coffee, and Sören didn't ask or demand to be waited on, it was something Dooku liked to do for him, and Sören never took these little moments of tender loving care for granted, smiling and saying " _takk_ " as he took the cup.  
  
"I'll stop at the store on the way home. Would you like anything in particular for dinner?"  
  
"Hmmm, you want to grill steaks again? I could go for that."  
  
"That sounds lovely." Dooku hovered, and took a moment to stroke Sören's curls, Sören leaning into the touch, making a little purring noise.  
  
"And then..." Sören leered up at him. "I'd like you for dessert."  
  
Dooku's face turned pink - Sören loved that he could  _still_  make Dooku blush like this, together well over a year now. He loved getting the old man all flustered, worked up, loving it even more when he could undo him completely, as he sent out the mental image across their Force bond, sucking and rimming him, watching him lose control.  
  
"You are a naughty boy."  
  
"You love it."  
  
"I do." Dooku gave him that little predatory smile that always sent a frisson down Sören's spine, a promise of wicked teasing later. "You know... I admit I had a few small concerns when this..." He made a vague hand gesture. "...business with Van started. Worried you'd lose interest. But if anything, it seems to have..."  
  
"Made me hungrier for you?" Sören nodded. "And I am."  
  
"It's been an interesting development. Not interesting in a bad way." There was a pause, and across their Force bond Sören could feel the glimmer of  _I'm still watching Van Apollyon._  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. "I heard that."  
  
"Yes." Dooku sighed. "Sören..." He sat down, and took Sören's hand in his. "Let me preface this by saying that if I felt you were at all unsafe... I would intervene." His dark eyes flashed, and he bared his teeth a little, giving Sören another frisson. He liked that side of Dooku, when it came out.  _My wolf._  "So it isn't quite that I... object, per se, to your arrangement. But I did Google Van Apollyon, and I find it concerning that he keeps  _as_  low of a profile as he does. And you know perfectly damn well the complaints I have about celebrities these days, like these Kardashian characters -"  
  
Sören snorted. "Let's not get you started on the Kardashians,  _elskan._ "  
  
"Or that... Donald Trump." Dooku made a face. "Vulgar."  
  
"OK, so Van is not a Kardashian or a Trump, and that's a good thing."  
  
"...The problem is that when someone keeps that low of a profile, it usually means that they have  _reasons_  for not wanting to be found, reasons above and beyond liking their privacy. With the kind of money that Van has, and the kind of background he has - which admittedly we don't know much about. He's Russian... and says his father was in government. Which says, as an educated guess, son of an oligarch, probably someone who knows Putin quite well. And Alejandro... as much as I like him... you did mention his family was involved in some kind of shady activity in South America. As you know, Russian interests in South America are rather... complicated. So from where I sit, it looks bad. It looks very bad. You may not be in any danger from Van himself - if I thought you were, I wouldn't care how connected to Russian organized crime he was, I'd deal with him personally. But he may have powerful enemies, and  _that_  is what concerns me."  
  
"And it's likely if that's the case, and we don't really know for sure... it's all just speculation..." Sören did wonder, however. "...They wouldn't know he's here in bloody backwater Iceland."  
  
"Perhaps not. But just the same, I want you to promise me that if  _anything_... off... happens when you're on these dates with him, tell me. Don't hide it from me thinking that it's 'not worth making me worry about it'. Especially when I have contacts back in the UK who might be of service if needed..."  
  
"All right. I mean so far, nothing weird has happened."  _Unless you consider putting a human on a leash to be weird._  "But I'll... keep you posted, I guess."  
  
"Please do." Dooku kissed Sören softly. "You're precious to me, and I couldn't bear losing you."  
  
"Oh, Nico." Sören kissed him back, eyes misting. " _Elskan._  I'm not going anywhere."  
  
"Nobody thinks they're going anywhere, until they do. As you know."  
  
Sören knew perfectly well, remembering finding his mother's dead body when he was six. He nodded solemnly.  
  
Dooku leaned back on the couch. "When I was younger, I learned fencing, and judo. I've been out of practice for some time, but lately I've been thinking it might be good to get back into one of those activities. I'm not as young as I used to be, no, but I'm still agile..."  
  
Sören grinned. "You're goddamn right."  
  
"I mean  _outside_  of that department, you and your one-track mind." Dooku flushed again, and Sören's grin got bigger. "But... I would feel better, dearest, if perhaps you learned a martial art as well."  
  
"Nico, I'm asthmatic. I used to get picked last for sports in school."  
  
"Martial arts are different. And as my old mentor, Yodha, taught me... it's a way of conditioning the mind, not just the body. You are strong in the Force. I don't get on you to meditate as I do -"  
  
"I get enough of that shit from Ari."  
  
"Indeed. But... I do think that if you had  _some_  training, even just a small set of exercises every day... your connection to the Force would grow stronger."  
  
"Hmm."  
  
"And even without that... I'd feel better knowing you could defend yourself in a fight. I don't mean the barfighting I've seen you get into, and heard about from Frankie. I mean being able to hold your own against... the kind of people Van probably has for enemies, out there."  
  
"Well, if they're that bad, then I'd need to learn something dirty, like, uh... um, what's that called, that Israeli stuff that sexy Daniel Craig does -"  
  
"Krav Maga. There's probably a studio in Reykjavik. I'd be willing to pay to fly you back and forth to lessons, since it's only a forty-five minute flight, if you were serious about learning it."  
  
"Which I'm... not, at the moment. I get what you're saying, Nico, I just." Sören shrugged. "I'm not some bloody  _Viking warrior._ "  
  
There was a knock at the door. "That would be Alejandro," Dooku said. "We'll continue this discussion later."  
  
_Much later._  Sören really didn't want to discuss it at all, didn't want to start getting paranoid, especially not after the way Justin had repeatedly threatened him with his "friends", the idea of being involved with someone else with criminal connections...  
  
Dooku got up and waved. "I'll see you in awhile."  
  
"Have a good walk." Sören blew him a kiss. He turned his attention back to Stardew Valley, frowning.  
  
  
  
_  
  
_Thursday_  
  
When Macalaurë Fëanorion heard wrong notes, or things played off-rhythm, it was physically  _painful_  to him.  
  
By the time his second piano lesson was over - the first one of the day - he wanted a drink.  
  
Instead, he got Sören, bringing him a Sprite, while Sören himself had a Pepsi. That was one thing that hadn't changed about Sören over the years - he still drank quite a bit of caffeine, which Sören had said once was a way to self-medicate his ADHD because conventional ADHD drugs didn't quite help him as intended. Though even somewhat controlled, Sören's ADHD tendencies came out - the hyperfocus on his art, when he was in the zone. Technically on his break, Maglor could feel Sören still there with his pastels, and that energy was intoxicating.  
  
"You look disgruntled," Sören said, turning his focus back to Maglor.  
  
"I'll manage."  
  
"At least you're still being patient. I think your students like you."  
  
"We shall see."  
  
"We shall." Sören took a swig of his Pepsi. "You have tomorrow off, and the weekend. Enjoy it."  
  
_I doubt that._  "Thank you."  
  
"You have any plans?"  
  
"Tomorrow night, while you're..." Maglor wasn't going to say it out loud. "Your husband is coming over, as he did last week."  
  
"Good, good. It's nice that you're keeping him company."  
  
"He's good company. We're going to cook, to start with."  
  
"Oh, what are you cooking?"  
  
"I'm teaching him to make  _caldo verde_  and  _bacalhau_."  
  
"Ohhhh, wonderful. You should come cook for us one night when I'm there, já?"  
  
"Perhaps." Maglor nodded.  
  
Then Sören raised an eyebrow, leaned back, and gave him a suspicious look as he took another swig of Pepsi.  
  
"What?"  
  
Sören continued eyeing him, and then he said, "Your accent. It's... noticeably a  _lot_  milder than last time I saw you, five years ago. I only just realized because of the contrast when you said those names."  
  
Maglor drank the Sprite and didn't respond immediately. He felt terrible about continuing the ruse that he was Brazilian, but...  
  
"I mean, didn't you go back to Rio when we...? And you had to marry What's-Her-Name?"  
  
Maglor sighed. He evaded the marriage question -  _Gods_ , how he regretted telling that lie in the first place. "I spent a few years in the States." That, at least, was the truth, though the full truth had been he arrived in the States seventy-two hours after their breakup.  
  
"Oh, really?" Sören gave him that sly, amused grin. "So what happened... did Trump deport you?"  
  
Maglor snorted, and smiled despite himself. "Not quite. Van brought me back here."  
  
"OK. But you were living in America?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Alaska."  
  
" _Alaska_?" Sören's eyebrows went up. "Not someplace like, I don't know, Los Angeles, New York..."  
  
Maglor made a face. "No." He went on. "Alaska, yes. It was... a bit like Iceland, I guess."  
  
"I just..." Sören shook his head. "Wow. But it explains your American accent! I mean, it's got a touch of Latin, but..."  
  
_It's not Latin._  Maglor could eliminate all traces of his native accent if he tried, and indeed, had done so when living in Alaska as Mark Lowry, using a New England accent, pretending to be a Connecticut native, and had done during a previous stint as Mark Lowry in the UK in the 1970s and 1980s, with careful RP in London, but even though the Brazilian identity was fake, there were still facets of it that were the  _truest to himself_ , nonetheless. The dark hair and pale skin, was plausible as a Portuguese Brazilian. The accent when speaking English, he didn't have to fake. There was the passion and fire of the Brazilian people. The sensuality. The love of dancing. He appreciated the cuisine. The music. The  _saudade_. Portuguese, itself, was one of the most beautiful human languages Maglor had ever heard - right up there with Icelandic - and he enjoyed speaking it, singing in it. He'd certainly enjoyed the effect it had on Sören, back when... He shut his eyes against the memories of speaking to him in Portuguese when they made love.  
  
Portuguese...  _and Elvish._  Sören had assumed the name Maitimo was Spanish or Portuguese, and Maglor had sometimes called Sören  _melindo_  or other endearments - had lapsed into his native tongue during climax - and Sören was none the wiser.  
  
"That is so cool," Sören said. "You've been so many places. Rio... you said you lived in Amsterdam for awhile... you were in the UK... and of course Reykjavik... and the States. So exciting, to have traveled so much."  
  
_It gets very, very old,_  melindo.  _Thou wert a joy to travel with, I thought I had seen everything there was to see, everyplace there was to go, and saw through new eyes with thee._  Maglor sighed and sipped his drink. "Yeah."  
  
"Ruh-roh." Sören cocked his head to one side. "Did I hit a nerve?"  
  
"Talking about the years between..." Maglor gestured to Sören, and then back to himself. "It's... a sore spot, yeah." That, at least, was not a lie. The last five years he'd just been existing.  
  
"Awwww. Well... it was rough for me too."  
  
"Hm."  
  
"But you know what? Van, bless him, cares about you enough to help you with, you know..." Sören gestured. "All of this."  
  
Maglor resisted a grimace. His mind flashed back to the conversation he and Vanimórë had just a few days ago.  
  
_"One thing, then. Just one, since thou doth purport to care for me so much—"  
  
"No." Vanimórë paused. "I will not stop seeing him. Thou must see — How can I? He gives me something that I have had so rarely — for the short time that is left—" He lifted his glass to his mouth, tossed the champagne down. "I will drink it to the dregs."  
  
"Wilt thou not talk about it? I know what he gives thee!"_  
  
"Hej, so..." The lilt of Sören's smoky voice broke through the unpleasant memory. "Sunday afternoon, want to keep me company for a bit while I fire some pots in the kiln? And I can give you the tour of my paintings around the studio?"  
  
_He wants to spend time with me. Time of his own volition, where he's not obligated by work as he is right this moment._  Maglor's stomach fluttered. "I... yes. Yes, that sounds good."  
  
Sören smiled. That smile went straight to his heart.  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Friday_  
  
"Shall we head out, love?"  
  
Sören smiled and took Dooku's hand.  
  
Sören looked delicious - white ruffly shirt, black vest, black leather pants, curls untamed. He smelled delicious; Dooku recognized the cherry blossom and anise of Kyoto, which smelled much more like spice on Sören's skin.  
  
Dooku, himself, was wearing Frederic, a scent he'd previously reserved for special occasions with Sören, but found himself putting it on to see Alejandro without thinking about it. That was curious...  
  
When they got to the door of the cottage, Dooku handed Sören the shopping bag with groceries in it - he was providing some of the ingredients, without being asked, wanting to be courteous to his host - and knocked gently on the door.  
  
Van answered, with Auli at his heels. "Come in," he said warmly.  
  
Dooku was still wary of Van - much more wary than he let on to Sören, not wanting to discourage the relationship, something that made Sören happy, when Sören had been in such raw pain when Alejandro showed up, a reminder that Sören still was in recovery from his past. But Dooku managed a polite smile, and a nod. "Good afternoon, Van."  
  
"Good afternoon, Dooku. How are you?"  
  
"Well."  
  
Van looked at Sören. "Hello, Sören."  
  
"Hej." Sören gave him a shy, sweet smile.  
  
"Alejandro should be out momentarily," Van said. "Can I get you anything...?"  
  
"I'm good, thank you," Dooku told him. "I'll go in the kitchen and put these away if you don't mind..." He took the shopping bag from Sören, and did just that.  
  
When he came out, Sören and Van were kissing passionately, which didn't quite bother him - wary though he was, he had to admit the sight of the two beautiful men kissing was rather erotic, and he was beginning to understand what Sören was saying about getting a better view of your partner if they were doing something with another person. The idea of being able to watch Sören taking a cock, for example...  
  
Alejandro came out of the bathroom just in time to see Sören and Van lick their tongues together playfully, and Sören to draw Van's lower lip into his mouth, sucking on it, before the two kissed again, oblivious to the fact that they were not alone in the room.  
  
"Er," Alejandro said.  
  
They pulled apart, breathless; Sören blushed, and Van just... grinned... at Alejandro, a wicked gleam in his eye.  
  
Alejandro was glaring daggers.  _If looks could kill..._  And Dooku then realized he found  _that_  glare just as arousing as the kiss Sören and Van were sharing.  
  
_No. Stop that. That is your husband's ex._  
  
"We were just leaving," Van told Alejandro. He reached out to stroke Sören's face, giving him a hungry look, and Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip, giggling.  
  
Alejandro continued glaring. Dooku found that a very odd response for someone who was just friends with benefits with Van and had insisted there was nothing between them, unless...  
  
_He's not over Sören._  
  
Of course he wouldn't be. Dooku hadn't been able to get over him, either.  _I wonder if Sören realizes it._  
  
"Have a good night, you guys." Sören waved. He turned to Alejandro and said, "We still on for Sunday afternoon at the studio?"  
  
"No," Alejandro said coldly. "I think not."  
  
Sören's eyebrows went up, his smile changing to a look of surprised hurt, but before he could say anything in response, Van was dragging him out the door, and Auli whined, sad to see Van go.  
  
Alejandro turned on his heel and stormed into the kitchen, and Dooku followed. Alejandro went to the liquor pantry and produced a bottle of whisky - Flóki, the flagship distillery of Iceland. "Ice or neat?" Alejandro asked him.  
  
"Neat."  
  
Alejandro poured two neat shot glasses, and knocked his back. Dooku sipped at his, thinking about pressing it, but his gut said no.  
  
Alejandro proceeded to roll up his sleeves, wash his hands, and then chop vegetables as furiously as a man could, like he was stabbing Van with each slice of the knife. Dooku had that same frisson of arousal watching it, the lethal, predatory grace, as well as the same pang of guilt. He moved to the side of Alejandro, preparing his half of the ingredients for  _caldo verde_. They said nothing, for awhile. Nothing needed to be said.  
  
When the  _caldo verde_  started in a pot on the stove, Alejandro moved on to the  _bacalhau_. Dooku had experience with making fish, but this was different - the salted cod was being dressed up with potato, onions, garlic, hard-boiled eggs, and olives, with parsley and olive oil.  
  
The  _caldo verde_  preparation had worked out some of the tension, and no doubt the whiskey had as well; Alejandro's body language was a bit more relaxed, and Dooku heard Alejandro humming as he worked. It was pleasant, though the melody, whatever it was, was also sad.  
  
As everything cooked, they went into the living room and watched an episode of  _Star Trek: The Next Generation_. Alejandro pet Auli, who eventually climbed up on him and lapped his face. Dooku smiled fondly.  
  
After the episode, dinner was ready. They ate outside, as it was still warm out, and Auli could just run around without too much begging.  
  
"What would you like to do after dinner?" Alejandro asked. "Chess again, like last week?"  
  
"Yes, I was looking forward to a rematch."  
  
"Good. I was looking forward to destroying someone."  
  
Their eyes met, and Dooku said, softly, "I wish I had some sort of platitudes or assurance to offer, but..."  
  
"Is it that obvious?"  
  
Dooku nodded solemnly. "To me, it is. To Sören... well... I don't know." He sighed. "He may not be able to see past the hurt."  
  
"You're not angry with me for...?"  
  
"I would be angry with you if you were actively trying to break up my marriage, and I would indeed fight for him if that was the case. But... for simply just still loving him, I can't blame you. I was rather in your shoes in early 2018. And I think if fate had aligned a certain way and you came back to Iceland then, our places would be swapped right now, you'd be with him, and I'd be the one pining and wanting closure."  
  
Alejandro looked down. He said nothing, and nibbled his food.  
  
"This is very good," Dooku said, changing the subject.  
  
"I'll give you the recipe before you go home tonight."  
  
"I'd like that."  
  
Alejandro ran a hand through his hair, which was blowing slightly in the breeze -  _he does have nice hair, STOP THAT_  - and their eyes met. "You want to... go for a ride...? After dinner? And then come back here and play chess? I've only had one shot, I'm safe to drive."  
  
"All right. To the sea, I assume."  
  
Alejandro nodded.  
  
After dinner they did just that. At first Alejandro had on classical music, but then he frowned and said, "I'm not in the mood for that." He turned to Dooku. "Do you care if I put on metal...?"  
  
"Oh yes  _please._ "  
  
Alejandro's eyebrows went up at that, and he changed the radio station to metal. Judas Priest was just ending, and when "Sad But True" by Metallica began playing, Dooku threw the horns. Alejandro laughed aloud.  
  
"Listen," Dooku said, "I was in my thirties in the 1980s when metal was big. I am not too old."  
  
"Didn't say you were. Just didn't have you pegged for..."  
  
"You most likely know this, but a number of metal musicians are classically trained. Dream Theater being one such example."  
  
"I. Fucking. Love. Dream Theater."  
  
"Good." Dooku nodded. "During the summer months, I like to take my motorcycle out and drive, listening to metal. Dio, Black Sabbath, Metallica, Queensryche..."  
  
"I knew there was a reason why I liked you." Alejandro smiled. "Sören thought it was strange that, you know, I come from a classical music background and I appreciate metal. But like you pointed out... so many of them are classically trained. The compositions are often as complex as anything the maestros produced."  
  
"You're Brazilian, do you like Sepultura?"  
  
"It's the law." Alejandro laughed again. "I like the way they incorporate their heritage into their music. It's really interesting. There's some other metal bands that do that - The Hu from Mongolia, Alien Weaponry from New Zealand..."  
  
"New Zealand. Do they sing in Maori?"  
  
Alejandro nodded.  
  
" _Fascinating._ "  
  
Alejandro waited for Metallica to be over and then he switched to his car device. "Alexa, play 'Kai Tangata'."  
  
When they got to the shore they sat together in companionable silence. Every now and again Dooku would steal glances at Alejandro, hair blowing in the wind, looking proud yet vulnerable, wishing very much there was something he could do to help soothe the  _ache_ , Alejandro's heart sighing like the sea.  
  
But watching the sea for awhile seemed to relax him further. They listened to more metal on the way back, and at the cottage, Alejandro readied the chessboard, and poured them each another shot of whiskey, since neither man would be driving for the rest of the night. As Alejandro sat back down, he was humming the same song he was humming in the kitchen.  
  
"What is that?" Dooku finally asked, curiosity getting the better of him.  
  
"That... what?"  
  
"What you were humming."  
  
Alejandro looked self-conscious for a moment, and then he adjusted and said, "Oh,  _that._  Um, it's a song I've been working on."  
  
"I'd like to hear it." A pause. "You know, I've never heard you sing or play, and Sören says you have quite the talent."  
  
"It's not finished yet, and I would prefer to not share it until it's done. I also have to be in the right space to perform, and I'm not in that space tonight. But next Friday? If those two..." He didn't need to finish the sentence; Dooku nodded. "If they are as usual and you want to come by again, I'd be happy to play for you."  
  
"I'd like that very much. Do you do covers as well?"  
  
"Depending on the cover. Metallica, sure. Katy Perry, not so much."  
  
Dooku's laughter rang out. "If I ever voluntarily request Katy Perry, be assured Hell has opened a ski resort."  
  
Alejandro smiled. "Good. I don't think I'd be able to let Sören live with a Katy Perry fan."  
  
Dooku continued to laugh, and Alejandro did as well, as he set up the chessboard. Once it was ready, he leaned back and gestured to Dooku. "Your move."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The flashback conversation between Maglor and Van (referenced on Thursday) is taken from [_Outlier of the Storm_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18617704) by Spiced_Wine.


	22. Heart To Heart

**Heart To Heart**

 

 _Monday_  
  
Sören groaned when the alarm went off. He stretched out against Dooku, snuggled against his chest and hip; Dooku's arms tightened around Sören, a hand in Sören's curls, petting. Sören buried his face in Dooku's shoulder and groaned again.  
  
Yesterday had been difficult. Sören had managed to put aside the rebuff from Alejandro about spending Sunday afternoon with him, to enjoy his night with Van -  _how_  he'd enjoyed it - but yesterday, when he was firing pots in the kiln, the ache hit him like a ton of bricks, and he found himself crying about Alejandro again, like he had not done since his ex had first arrived.  
  
_It seems like we took one step forward and four steps back._  
  
Sören got ready for his class; Dooku was supposed to go on a walk with Alejandro and Auli before Alejandro would be taking them to the studio, and when he came out of the bathroom Dooku was still there, looking mildly alarmed.  
  
"He still hasn't called or knocked?" Sören asked.  
  
Dooku shook his head, frowning.  
  
Sören folded his arms. "I hope he's not bailing."  _Like he did five years ago, when I fucking needed him then. Why was I fool enough to think he wouldn't abandon us now?  
  
Oh for fuck's sake, it's not like you guys are involved anymore!_  
  
Sören flinched as if he'd been struck. He brushed the feeling aside, not wanting to argue with himself right this minute. "You should call him."  
  
Dooku sighed.  
  
Sören gave him a puzzled look. He read shyness on Dooku,  _intense_  shyness, which was odd considering Dooku had been warming up to Alejandro and indeed, they were more social with each other than Sören was with Alejandro. Dooku's cheeks were pink, and he looked down.  
  
"Just... call him. He's not gonna yell at you for calling him. His problem isn't with  _you_ , is it?"  
  
Dooku dialed Alejandro's number, and waited. After six rings there was no answer. Dooku ended the call and leaned back in his chair.  
  
"Maybe I should go down there..." Dooku looked in the general direction of their cottage.  
  
And then they both felt it. It was like a bomb going off, with a shock wave rolling down the street. Intense heat, consuming - the temperature seemed to go up in the cabin slightly. Snúdur made a meow of distress and slurked under the couch, something he normally didn't do except when Dooku vacuumed.  
  
"What the..." Sören sat on the arm of the couch.  
  
Dooku took a few deep breaths, and Sören did the same, but his hands were shaking.  _What the hell is going on?_ Sören could see the flash of anger in Alejandro's eyes, even though he wasn't there.  
  
Sören got up, and returned to the bathroom, this time to run the tap and splash cold water on his face and hands, a grounding technique he'd learned in therapy years ago, to help when he felt triggered in any way. He wasn't quite triggered, but whatever he was picking up on empathically was disturbing him enough to need the distraction.  
  
And then, his phone went off. " _Alejandro, Alejandro,_ " Lady Gaga sang. " _Ale-Ale-jandro, Ale-Ale-jandro._ "  
  
Sören answered. "Hello."  
  
"Sören."  
  
"Hi, good morning! You still coming to drive us to the studio in a bit?"  
  
"Sören..." A deep breath. "Auli."  
  
Sören felt his heart skip a beat. "What... is he all right...?"  
  
"Auli ran away." A pause. "Van and I had a bit of an argument and I was getting ready to take Auli out for his walk and Auli just... ran... before I could get the leash on him..." Alejandro's voice broke, a little.  
  
"I'm on my way."  
  
Sören  _ran_  down the street, out of breath and needing to puff on his inhaler when he got to Alejandro, who was sitting on the front step of the cottage, holding Auli's leash, looking ready to cry.  
  
"OK, what happened?" Sören asked when he caught his breath.  
  
"Auli ran out... down the hill." Alejandro pointed. "I chased after him but he was fast, and then I didn't see where he went." Alejandro covered his face with his hands. "Your neighbors are going to kill me... and..."  
  
"OK. Calm down." Sören instinctively reached out to pat him; Alejandro looked up, tears in his eyes. Sören's heart broke for him, wanting to hug him, but  _not now. Not yet._  "We're going to find him."  
  
He held out his hand, and Alejandro took it, and Sören stood up. He gestured, walking them back towards the cabin. "This is what we're going to do," Sören said. "I'm going to drive us around, in my jeep, since I know this part of the country better than you do. We can't cancel our morning classes on such short notice, so we do have to go to the studio when it's time, but if we don't find Auli before that, Nico will continue looking for him." He took out his cell as he walked towards the cabin and dialed Dooku's number. "Hej,  _elskan_? Auli ran away..."  
  
"Oh no."  
  
"I'm gonna take Alejandro to look for him. If he doesn't turn up by the time we have to go to the studio, can you drive around and try to find him? He went east of here, at least at first."  
  
"Yes, just call me and let me know."  
  
"Will do."  
  
Alejandro climbed in the passenger seat of Sören's jeep - it felt weird for Sören to be the one to drive Alejandro, for a change. He was still holding the leash, and looked at it sadly as Sören began to pull out.  
  
"Let me see that," Sören said, gesturing.  
  
Alejandro gave him a puzzled look.  
  
"Just give me it, for a minute." During the almost-five years of their relationship, Sören had been very careful to hide his Force abilities from Alejandro, as he habitually hid them from everyone - Dooku was the first person outside his family who he trusted with that information. Occasionally, Sören could hold an object and "read" it, seeing a brief visionary flash of the person, place or thing attached. It usually happened randomly, but he was willing to try to make it happen now, to find this dog. He of course wasn't going to let Alejandro know that was what he was doing, so he had to disguise his intent somehow. He popped the glove compartment and took out a tin of mints. "Sucking on something usually helps me feel better." Sören's mind immediately went into the gutter, and at the flush in Alejandro's cheeks, he knew Alejandro had the same reaction... and they'd sucked each other enough times to know. "Er. I mean." He handed Alejandro the mints. "Just... have a mint. They're soothing."  
  
Of course, now Sören was thinking about the times he'd sucked Alejandro's cock, and Alejandro had sucked him... the times they'd sixty-nined... the way they'd rimmed each other, sometimes to climax without touching anything else...  
  
_Focus._  
  
Sören held the leash as Alejandro popped the tin and carefully put a mint in his mouth, and closed his eyes. Auli couldn't have gone  _too_  far in a short amount of time, even if he was a fast runner. In his mind's eye, Sören saw a familiar cluster of farms, and sheep and pigs. Wildflowers. Sören knew exactly where those farms were.  
  
He handed the leash back to Alejandro. His nerves were still on edge, enough that Sören could feel it, and Sören decided to help by putting on the radio. Alejandro wouldn't want to listen to hip-hop, so Sören put on the "alternative" station.  
  
Of course, it was playing  _motherfucking Depeche Mode. Of course._  
  
_I'm in the hands of fate  
I hand myself  
Over on a plate  
Now  
  
Oh little girl  
There are times when I feel  
I'd rather not be  
The one behind the wheel  
Come  
Pull my strings  
Watch me move  
I do anything  
Please_  
  
Sören gave Alejandro the side-eye, wondering once again if Alejandro was at least mildly Force sensitive and doing this subconsciously; Alejandro was looking out the window.  
  
When the song was over, Alejandro buried his face in his hands again.  
  
"Alejandro. It's gonna be OK. We'll find him."  
  
"I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if anything happened to that dog."  
  
Sören's heart broke again. "Awwww, you really love Auli, don't you?"  
  
Alejandro took his face out of his hands, looked down, and nodded. "Yeah, I'm... a bit attached to him." He laughed nervously, though on the verge of tears.  
  
"He's a good boy. I remember when he was a puppy and Vigdís and Páll first got him, not long after Nico moved out here! I'm attached to him too but I imagine it must be moreso for you, since you take care of him every day. But you know... you should get a dog."  
  
Alejandro sighed.  
  
"I know you move a lot, and it can be hard to bring pets when you travel," Sören said, "but maybe you could... I don't know... settle down in one place for awhile."  _Stay here in Akureyri._  
  
Alejandro didn't respond to that.  
  
"Having my cat did me a world of good," Sören said. "I found him during a time of very bad depression, and he gave me a reason to live, something to care for, look after. Companions are good for the soul."  
  
Sören could hear  _will you STOP_  at the back of his head, and then Alejandro said, "I don't know why you're encouraging me to get a pet, when I can't even take care of this one. He could  _die_ , out there -"  
  
Something told Sören that Alejandro wasn't entirely talking about Auli anymore.  
  
They were almost to the cluster of farms Sören had seen in the vision, just off in the distance. Sören drove a little faster, and when the farms approached, he slowed down, looking out the window as he drove. "Alejandro, keep an eye out on your side," he said.  
  
"You seem certain he's going to turn up here."  
  
"He's a sheepdog. Herding sheep is an instinct for him. He'd go where the sheep are." Sören wasn't going to come out and say  _I had a vision and he was here._  
  
For some reason, Sören was reminded of that scene from  _Lord of the Rings_ , and murmured, "Legolas, what do your elf eyes see?"  
  
" _What._ "  
  
"Nothing, it was a stupid joke."  
  
Alejandro was giving him a  _look_  now, and Sören flushed, remembering the pointy ears he'd seen the first time they'd showered together - which he always found beautiful and sexy, but knew Alejandro hid, didn't like talking about; Sören imagined he'd gotten any number of "elf" jokes growing up in Rio with that birth defect. He hadn't meant to be insensitive, it just slipped out.  
  
But then before he could beat himself up too much about lack of tact, Alejandro said, "There." He pointed over Sören's shoulders, and sure enough, there was Auli, lounging in a field, as sheep grazed and pigs wallowed.  
  
" _Takk._ " Sören pulled over. His seat was closest to where Auli was, so he grabbed the leash back, jumped out of the jeep and ran.  
  
As soon as Auli saw him, he broke off in a run... in the opposite direction. Sören was having to chase him now, annoyed as his asthma started up again. When Auli was headed for the barn, Sören swore, " _Ríða_ ," not wanting an awkward scene if he was caught in someone's barn, trespassing.  
  
He had to act,  _now_ , or he was going to have to chase Auli into the barn. Sören glanced over his shoulder; the jeep was far enough away that he might be able to get away with this. Sören used the Force and began to pull, with Auli rising off the ground and flying backwards, until he was in Sören's arms. Sören still had the leash, and he clipped it through Auli's collar. Auli licked his face, and Sören gave him a peevish look. " _Þú litla rassinn. Þú litla skít. Óþekkur hundur._ " Auli whined, and licked his face some more.  
  
Even though he was on the leash and could be walked, Sören continued to carry Auli to the jeep. He came around to Alejandro's side of the jeep - Alejandro had been rocking himself with his eyes closed, crying a little - and Sören put the dog in his arms. Alejandro's face lit up and Auli began to lick his face enthusiastically, making Alejandro laugh when Auli put his tongue in his nose. "Dammit, Auli..."  
  
Sören got back in the passenger's seat. "OK. We can... drop Auli off, and we'll both be late, or we can take him to the studio and bring him back later. Up to you."  
  
"I don't mind keeping him there with me for music class if you don't mind him being there."  
  
"I don't."  
  
Alejandro let out a sigh of relief. " _Thank you._ "  
  
Sören nodded, and patted him. "I told you he'd be OK."  
  
Alejandro started to cry again, and then looked embarrassed for crying. Auli kissed his tears, and Sören smiled at him fondly.  
  
"I'm sorry," Alejandro said.  
  
"Can I ask... what were you and Van fighting about that was so bad that Auli got spooked enough to run off like that?"  
  
Alejandro leaned back in the passenger seat with a sharp sigh. He didn't want to answer that question.  
  
But finally he did. "I was going to leave," Alejandro said. "I was looking at plane tickets to just... go."  
  
"Back to the States?"  
  
He didn't answer that, but continued on. "I felt like... it was stupid for me to come here."  
  
"No, not stupid." Sören shook his head. "I'll be honest, I was PISSED when you showed up -"  
  
Alejandro frowned. "That's part of the problem, Sören. I know how badly I hurt you. In fact, I'm pretty sure there's more to that hurt than what I do know. You've always felt things more deeply than most people."  
  
"I am nothing if not intense, yes."  
  
"I've been consumed by guilt. It's been eating me alive, not just the weeks I've been here, but the entire last five years. And seeing that guilt was justified, seeing the pain in your eyes..." Alejandro couldn't go on, his voice breaking.  
  
"Fall In Love" by Phantogram came on the radio, as if on cue, and the two lapsed into silence as the song played, expressing words Alejandro could not.  
  
_Love  
It was enough to recognize  
To see  
I was the reason you feel sick inside  
  
Fall in need  
I let you bleed  
'Cause you were falling  
I'm sorry baby  
'Cause you were falling  
I'm sorry  
  
Love  
It cut a hole into your eyes  
You couldn't see  
You were the car I crashed  
Now you're burning alive  
  
Fall in need  
I let you bleed  
'Cause you were falling  
I'm sorry baby  
'Cause you were falling  
I'm sorry  
  
Babe  
The night has swallowed my soul  
Could it be that I fell apart  
It shows  
The lines on my face ate away my smile  
Could it be that I fell apart  
  
Fall in need  
I let you bleed  
'Cause you were falling  
I'm sorry baby  
  
Fall in need  
I let you bleed  
'Cause you were falling  
I'm sorry baby  
  
Fall in need_  
  
By the time the song was over, Sören's eyes were burning with unshed tears. The studio was close, and the time they'd need to open was close, and Sören knew if he gave into those tears he'd be a wreck when the students started showing up, but  _GOD. Murder me in the feels._  
  
"So between the guilt..." Alejandro's voice cut back in. "...and then... seeing you with Van. Feeling like he was  _flaunting_  it."  
  
"Alejandro. Just so you understand, I'm not going to stop seeing Van."  
  
"He said the same thing."  
  
Sören nodded. "You have to live with the consequences of the choices you made. The choices you made are such that I had to move on with my life at some point. This is me moving on with my life."  
  
Alejandro looked away.  
  
"But," Sören said, "as pissed as I was when you showed up... last week was nice. I'm not unhappy you're here, anymore, and I'd be pissed all over again if you just  _left_ , like you were planning on doing. I'd like us to be friends. Not just for my husband's sake or the sake of us working together civilly, anymore, but because I still care about you."  
  
"That means a lot." Their eyes met. Auli squirmed and leaned into Sören, to lick his face with approval.  
  
"So... no leaving, you." Sören gave him a playful swat as he pulled into the studio. "And you know, I know you think Van might be trolling you with... what he has going with me... but he clearly cares about you too, if he brought you here so you could stop being eaten alive with guilt, get the closure you need, told you to not make a stupid arsehole decision like just running away."  _Again._  
  
Alejandro said nothing, and they got out of the jeep. He walked Auli on the leash towards the studio, with Auli wagging his tail, tongue lolling like he hadn't been the source of tremendous upset a short while ago.  
  
Sören pointed at Auli, using the simple dog to illustrate a moment of simple, raw truth. "You know how upset you were when he ran off? That would be me, if you just left without saying goodbye. So don't. If you get that urge, think of me reacting the way you did to Auli running away."  _It was like that before, but so much worse. A part of me fucking DIED, when you were gone._  
  
They paused in their tracks, and looked at each other for a long moment, and then Sören, at last, gave into his urge to hug Alejandro, squeezing him tight. Alejandro returned the hug, gently, shaking a little - Sören could feel Alejandro's own heart breaking, and it broke his heart all over again. They held each other for a minute, and then Sören grabbed him by the tail of his shirt and dragged him inside the studio, making them both laugh a little.  
  
"Here," he said. "Let's get through today, and let's get through this summer, all right?"  
  
Alejandro nodded.


	23. Finding The Way

**Finding The Way**

 

 _Tuesday_  
  
After clearing the air a bit with Alejandro the day before, Sören was in brighter spirits, and this reflected in his watercolor class. Sören found himself working on a painting of Auli, and though Alejandro did not like having pictures of himself taken, he nonetheless felt compelled to paint Alejandro into the picture, Auli licking his face as he laughed, the two sitting in a field of wildflowers, everything glowing softly as if they were possessed of some kind of magic.  
  
Periodically Sören got up to see what his students were working on, offering feedback as usual. Símon, a handsome blond in his early twenties, was painting a watercolor of two half-naked men in a sensual pose, which surprised Sören because Símon had previously given no indicator of being gay. "Oh, my," Sören said, pausing at the painting. "That's... really. Something."  
  
Símon  _winked_  at him.  
  
Sören felt himself blushing as he sat back down, but he was decidedly not interested in Símon. His age and the blond hair and the sportiness of him reminded Sören too much of his ex Justin, and even if none of those factors were in place, Sören felt like he had his hands full enough at the moment without trying to pursue something with one of his students as well. He hoped Símon wasn't actually  _flirting_  with him.  
  
But of course, he was. When the class let out, Símon lingered past the other students leaving, helping himself to the drinks Sören kept on hand for the students, and finally Sören paused from his cleanup. "Can I help you with something?" Sören asked.  
  
"So, I couldn't help but notice at the solstice party, you had your husband there, but you were also making out with another guy, and he seemed fine with it. Am I correct to assume you're in an open relationship?"  
  
"Yes and no," Sören said, leaning back against a supply drawer, folding his arms. "My husband allows me to see other people, if he knows them and approves."  
  
"Interesting." Símon nodded. "Would you like to go to dinner with me sometime?"  
  
Before Sören could answer and tell him "no, not really," Alejandro poked his head in the door. The conversation between Sören and Símon had been in Icelandic, and Alejandro didn't speak it fluently, so Sören was quite sure that Alejandro didn't know the full context of what was happening, but Alejandro still gave Símon a wary look, before addressing Sören in English. "You ready to grab lunch?"  
  
Sören nodded. " _Takk._ "  _You don't know the weight of that thanks._  He turned to Símon and said, in English, "We'll continue this discussion at another time, all right?"  
  
Símon nodded. "OK." He also gave Alejandro a wary look, probably sizing him up as competition.  
  
"I'll see you next week, já?" Sören managed a smile, trying to be friendly. Símon only took the one class a week, watercolors.  
  
Sören hoped Alejandro didn't look at the table of finished, drying watercolors - he wanted to surprise him with the painting of him and Auli, and today was not that day - but Alejandro's back was to the table. "Shall we go?"  
  
They got in Alejandro's Jaguar and went to the same sandwich shop in Akureyri where they'd gone last week, which Sören was starting to think of as "their usual". They ate outside, people-watching together, making quiet observations to each other like old times. On their way out of the shop, Sören walked to a cart offering various snacks, and got a slushie for himself, making Alejandro cringe.  
  
"You haven't changed at all," Alejandro remarked.  
  
"Nope." Sören slurped his slushie loudly, making Alejandro cringe even more.  
  
"God, that's so bright it's... radioactive." Alejandro made another face.  
  
"No wonder it's so good."  
  
There was a street performer nearby, playing an acoustic guitar, an empty cup in his open case. It was hard to tell if he was busking for the enjoyment of it or because he needed money; he was neither the greatest nor the worst guitarist and singer Sören had ever heard, but Sören felt generous and produced some bills from his wallet to tip him. Alejandro did the same, but Alejandro also put his hand on the guitarist's shoulder and met his eyes, lingering for a moment. "Stay safe," Alejandro told the guitarist in a firm tone of voice, before walking Sören off to the Jaguar.  
  
Sören wondered  _what is that about_ , and once again, wondered if Alejandro was Force sensitive and knew things, and was doing some kind of magic.  _That's ridiculous, isn't it?_  
  
After Sören's children's class - painting sculptures they'd made last week - and Alejandro's second piano class of the day, Sören brought Alejandro into the art room to show him the sculpture of his mother. He'd painted the robe as a night sky with stars, and she wore flower garlands.  
  
"That's beautiful," Alejandro said.  
  
"Can... we go to my mother's grave?"  
  
It seemed odd, coming here with him, as one of the first acts of their friendship-turned-romance ten years ago had been Alejandro taking Sören on a trip so he could put flowers on his mother's grave for her birthday. But it also felt  _right_ , as if they'd somehow come full circle.  
  
Sören noticed that the small vase with the star symbol on it was still on her grave, and the violets that had been inside were now replaced with new flowers. Sören once again wondered how it got there, if someone who had been following his work and the recurring symbols made a little token of kindness, which was the most plausible explanation but somehow still didn't seem like the answer. Alejandro gave the vase a funny look, but said nothing.   
  
Sören put the statue on his mother's grave next to the vase, and knelt for a moment. The wind began to blow - Sören was a skeptical agnostic at best, but for a moment he could  _swear_  she was there, with him - and then Sören felt Alejandro's right hand on his shoulder, comforting, reassuring. He reached up to close his hand over Alejandro's, and without thinking about it, traced and stroked the scars on his hand. Alejandro recoiled, as if he'd been shocked or burned. "I'm... I'm sorry," Sören said, feeling awkward.  
  
Alejandro looked away.  
  
They drove back to their street in silence, and then they lingered at the cabin. "Tell your husband I'll be ready in twenty minutes," Alejandro said, and Sören nodded.  
  
Sören ached to hug Alejandro again - a hug they both needed - but he didn't. Things were already tense and awkward enough, again.  
  
_One step forward, four steps back._  
  
_  
  
  
_Wednesday_  
  
Alejandro brought Sören iced coffee in the morning as usual. Sören had his ceramics class and today was doing something a little different - he brought in a bowl that he'd ended up taking outside, throwing and breaking when he saw his ex Justin on the news, getting some kind of award and accolades, one of the few times in his life Sören had been angry enough to be destructive, triggered, acting out of a flashback he had with Justin's own destruction of his art. Sören didn't explain to his class that this had been the reason for the bowl breaking - he didn't want to talk about Justin to them - so he refrained from explaining the story behind the break.   
  
The bowl wasn't completely destroyed, it was only cracked, and once Dooku had calmed him down, Sören had decided to salvage the bowl, though it had taken him months to get to where he was now, being at a place where he could finally take it out and deal with those memories and the task of repairing it.  
  
Alejandro was peeking in on Sören's class while his students were practicing, and Sören addressed them in English. "There is a Japanese art called  _kintsugi_ , or  _kintsukuroi_ , which means 'golden repair'. Cracks in pottery are repaired with a special lacquer prepared with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. I have some of this, and I'll be repairing my bowl with this method." Sören showed them the epoxy, which Dooku had ordered as a special birthday gift for Sören last year, but Sören had not gotten around to using it until now. "The Japanese also have a philosophy called  _wabi-sabi_ , seeing beauty in what is flawed or imperfect. There's something very symbolic about fixing cracks in pottery this way... like honoring the scars of where we've been. The scars that prove we survived." His eyes met Alejandro's, and then re-focused on his bowl. "There's something about experiencing pain and unkindness, and still being able to find joy and show kindness, that's worth honoring. It's kept that fire burning in me all these years, though god knows I've wanted to give up more than once. It's often the people who have been through the worst, who shine the brightest, and when you feel like giving up, it's important to remember that - that your story of survival is beautiful and deserves to be here."  
  
He quoted Leonard Cohen:  
  
_Ring the bells that still can ring  
Forget your perfect offering  
There is a crack in everything  
That's how the light gets in_  
  
"Ahhhh, this is why I love coming here," María said, smiling. "You mix art with poetry and philosophy, I love it."  
  
Alejandro's head poked back out of the door, and Sören heard Alejandro tell his class, "Will you excuse me for a few moments? I need to visit the restroom."  
  
Sören absorbed himself in his work, and then he heard guitars again and Alejandro's voice. The time flew by, as it always did in his ceramics class, and Sören was still lining the bowl when his class was over and Alejandro walked in.  
  
"Lunch?" he asked.  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
Sören noticed in the Jaguar. "You've been crying."  
  
"What you said in there."  
  
"Ohhhh." Sören gave him a sympathetic look, and once again ached to hold him. "I didn't mean to upset you -"  
  
"You didn't... upset me." Alejandro swallowed hard, and looked briefly at Sören to look away again.  
  
"I know I made things awkward at the graveyard yesterday when -"  
  
"It was just..." Alejandro's eyes met his. "Too much like old times."  
  
_Yes, it was._  There was a lot of that, and Sören was feeling something behind the ache to hold him. Something that wasn't wise or sane at all.  
  
They ate lunch at the sandwich shop again, people-watching, and Sören got another slushie to horrify him, snickering at his reaction.  
  
After the sketching class, and Alejandro's second guitar class, Sören said on the way home, "I don't want to go straight home just yet. You feel like going for a little drive?"  
  
"We can do that." Alejandro nodded. "Where to... graveyard again?"  
  
"No. There's a park I used to go when I was a kid. I want to go there."  
  
When they arrived at the park Alejandro called Dooku to let him know he'd be late for their walk. Sören noticed Alejandro kept touching his hair during the conversation, and it was making Sören want to touch his hair.  _I need to show him that painting,_  Sören thought to himself, and then decided,  _Tomorrow._  
  
Sören and Alejandro took a walk around the park, with Sören pausing here and there to admire the wildflowers. There was a children's playground, and Sören pulled Alejandro there. Alejandro laughed as Sören climbed onto a swing and began kicking the ground, pumping his legs to gain momentum. "Give me a push," Sören said.  
  
"Oh, my god."  
  
"Give me a  _fucking push._ "  
  
Alejandro rolled his eyes, laughed some more, and then got behind Sören, giving him a few pushes, until Sören was soaring as high as the bar on the swing set, leaning back to get the full effect of flying. "Wheeeeee," Sören yelled.  
  
"You are such a big kid."  
  
"You should try it."  
  
"Er."  
  
Sören stuck out his tongue and then blew a raspberry. "Dork."  
  
Sören laughed when Alejandro got on the swing next to him - it was even more ridiculous to see all seven feet of him on the swing, and when Alejandro leaned back, there was all that hair, rippling with the motions back and forth.  
  
Sören  _really_  wanted to touch his hair now.  _Fuck._  
  
They stayed on the swing set for a few minutes, until a mother with small children approached, and then they climbed off, not wanting to look creepy, but the mother just laughed at them. "You're a cute couple," she told them both.  
  
Sören and Alejandro looked at each other, and Sören's face burned. He thought about saying  _we're not_ , and Alejandro didn't correct her either, but put his hands on Sören's shoulders, marching him to the Jaguar.  
  
Sören had Alejandro come in when they got back to the cabin, and Dooku made them tea. "We can just go get Auli and then go for a walk, or a drive to the bay, if you want," Alejandro told him.  
  
"That sounds good." Dooku gave Sören a hug and a kiss, and they nuzzled for a moment. Then Dooku lingered, as if he'd been wanting to say this for awhile and hadn't found the right time yet. "Should we have Alejandro as a dinner guest tomorrow?"  
  
"Sure," Sören said, nodding. "And then I assume you guys will be getting together when I'm with Van on Friday night -?"  
  
Dooku and Alejandro looked at each other and nodded. "That's the plan, yes."  
  
"OK, have fun on your excursion, you guys. Give Auli pets for me."  
  
After Dooku and Alejandro headed out, Sören got on his laptop, Snúdur purring away on his lap. Sören saw he'd been pinged in the family chat server, where he hadn't been in a few days, and rolled his eyes with annoyance.  _I thought I told Dag to not ping if I was gone for a few days, considering I get busy with stuff._  
  
But when he checked the mentions, he saw Dagnýr had done an @everyone ping, which made him curious.  _God, I hope everything is going OK with the surrogate._  He hated that his first response for anything was to worry.  
  
**[6:12 PM] Sören:**  hi  
  
**[6:14 PM] Margrét:**  IT'S ALIVE  
  
**[6:15 PM] Frankie:**  OMFG a wild Sören appeared  
  
**[6:17 PM] Sören:**  I see I was summoned... Dag did an @/everyone... so @Dagnýr holla @ me when you get this  
  
**[6:19 PM] Margrét:**  How have you been, luv?  
  
**[6:21 PM] Sören:**  busy.  
  
**[6:22 PM] Margrét:**  Oh- _ho_. Things still going well with Ra-Ra-Rasputin?  
  
**[6:22 PM] Sören:**  yes. although...  
  
**[6:23 PM] Sören:**  you've been at this poly thing awhile, maybe you can help me with this  
  
**[6:23 PM] Sören:**  one of my students flirted with me the other day and I'm... not really into him like that?  
  
**[6:23 PM] Sören:**  he remarked on me being in an open relationship, which he'd know about because of what went down at the solstice party, but like...  
  
**[6:24 PM] Sören:**  ...that doesn't mean I'm public property now and fair game, right?  
  
**[6:25 PM] Margrét:**  Ugh,  _yeah_ , this is something you're going to deal with from time to time.  
  
**[6:25 PM] Margrét:**  A lot of people, when they hear you're poly, it's like some sort of "FREE FRESH MEAT" sign goes off in their head.  
  
**[6:26 PM] Margrét:**  Kol, Frankie and I went to a BDSM club recently and I actually have a sticker I wore that says this:  
  
**[6:27 PM] Margrét:**

****

(Image: A pink, yellow and blue sign that says "Pansexual, Polyamorous, Still Not Interested.")

 

 **[6:29 PM] Frankie:**  ^  
  
**[6:31 PM] Margrét:**  Poly does not equal "everyone", and it is perfectly valid for you to  _not_  be interested in someone for  _any_  reason.  
  
**[6:33 PM] Sören:**  OK good, and I'll tell him that.  
  
**[6:34 PM] Dagnýr:**  HELLO  
  
**[6:35 PM] Sören:**  there you are. what's the deal with the @/everyone ping, is everything all right?  
  
**[6:35 PM] Sören:**  Nicole, pregnancy, all right?  
  
**[6:36 PM] Dagnýr:**  Yes, that's going fine. That wasn't why I pinged.  
  
**[6:36 PM] Dagnýr:**  I have... news.  
  
**[6:36 PM] Dagnýr:**  Specifically,  _information_.  
  
**[6:37 PM] Sören:**  well then, out with it  
  
**[6:38 PM] Dagnýr:**  DRUMROLL PLEASE  
  
**[6:40 PM] Sören:**   ~~oh my god so dramatic~~  
  
**[6:41 PM] Dagnýr:**  I have found  
  
**[6:41 PM] Dagnýr:**  what I was looking for  
  
**[6:41 PM] Dagnýr:**  with the genealogical research.  
  
**[6:42 PM] Dagnýr:**  He is also the terminus of one branch of our maternal ancestry, meaning no records exist prior to him.  
  
**[6:42 PM] Dagnýr:**  So.  
  
**[6:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  Here's the story.  
  
**[6:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  In the 1600s, a man came from Norway, named Tindri Magnússon.  
  
**[6:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  Tindri Magnússon had some wealth, and bought the plot of land that our great-grandparents' farm was on until the 1980s, when it was sold.  
  
**[6:45 PM] Sören:**  I was right near there the other day, not on the farm itself, but not far from it, either.  
  
**[6:45 PM] Sören:**  chasing a lost dog LMAO  
  
**[6:46 PM] Sören:**  anyway go on  
  
**[6:47 PM] Dagnýr:**  Tindri Magnússon married, had a son named Finn Tindsson - we'll get back to him in just a bit. Well... there's a bit of a story about Tindri. He was said to have long, unusual hair literally described in the records as "bronze", silver eyes, and was "as tall and strong as a giant". Which, you know, Scandinavians run tall, but this was apparently tall even by Scandi standards. He was described as a "strange, proud" man, "of noble bearing".  
  
**[6:50 PM] Dagnýr:**  So the story goes that there was some outbreak of something or other, and a lot of people in the village were sick, and Tindri was one of the few who was not sick. His wife's family was quite ill, and they didn't really approve of her marrying this big weird Norwegian guy, and Tindri went over there as a gesture of good faith, to take care of them through their illness.  
  
**[6:52 PM] Dagnýr:**  They recovered, but then the mother-in-law repaid him by going to the Church and claiming that Tindri had healed them with witchcraft. That he'd "glowed silver" and spoke in a "foreign tongue". And of course back in  _those_  days, you couldn't say shit like that without the Church having to investigate.  
  
**[6:53 PM] Dagnýr:**  It was common for the Church to make the accused strip and search their body for weird birthmarks or whatever, something that would prove they were in league with the devil. They found no blemishes, but they found...  
  
**[6:54 PM] Dagnýr:**  ...pointy ears.  
  
**[6:54 PM] Dagnýr:**  Tindri Magnússon was burned for witchcraft.  
  
**[6:55 PM] Sören:**  Yikes.  
  
**[6:56 PM] Sören:**  also the fuck, pointy ears can be a birth defect, you know?  
  
**[6:57 PM] Dagnýr:**  You'd  _think_  that, but no, to these people back then, this was some kind of evidence he was one of the  _huldufólk_  and of course at the time the  _huldufólk_  were said to be demonic.  
  
**[6:58 PM] Dagnýr:**  Plus it wasn't just pointy ears on its own, he had some kind of supernatural healing ability, healing his in-laws' family through a sickness that was killing off a lot of other people, and there had been a few other strange reports, like he could make animals do his bidding, he could "witch" the weather, and stuff like that.  
  
**[6:59 PM] Dagnýr:**  Obviously we don't  _know_  how much of this is legit and how much was bullshit "witnesses" made up as part of the mob mentality that happened when people were accused of witchcraft, but  
  
**[7:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  What follows with his son Finn Tindsson makes it even more interesting.  
  
**[7:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  Having had a father who was burned for witchcraft which would call him into suspicion as well, Finn became VERY devout, to free himself from the "taint of sin" in his blood. He became the vicar of the big church in Akureyri, and BOY was he obsessed with God, sin, etc. He had the ashes of his father buried on the family farm, so there was at least that, but otherwise... very keen on distancing himself, "God is my Father", etc.  
  
**[7:03 PM] Dagnýr:**  He had... laying on of hands ceremonies at his church. Faith healing. People said they saw light and heard the voice of an angel.  
  
**[7:04 PM] Dagnýr:**  He was also a prophet and told people things that came true. He was noted to be "blessed by God" to live an unusually long life, over a hundred ten years old before he died, in days when if you made it to  _40_  that was considered old.  
  
**[7:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  When his father did it, it was Satanic, witchcraft, etc, but when HE did it, people thought it was miracles from God. He got a pass on this, while his father had burned.  
  
**[7:06 PM] Dagnýr:**  Finn had a son, Jón Finnsson, who became vicar of the church, and he didn't have the full strength of his father's gifts, but he was known for the occasional prophecy, and was said to be possessed of a beautiful singing voice, and people who attended Jón Finnsson's services consistently reported feeling a "glow" and "warmth". "The Light of Christ is with him," people said - " _Gefur ljósi Krists_ " - "Giver of the Light of Christ" is even written on his tombstone. He wrote mystical poems about the Tree of Life and God being like a fire, and God everywhere in nature, the green world, like an early 1700s Hildegard von Bingen, without the monasticism since he married and had kids and all that.  
  
**[7:09 PM] Dagnýr:**  So sure, the accusations against Tindri, on their own, might be suspect, but combined with what we know about his son Finn, and his grandson Jón?  _Pretty_  sure that's genetic.  
  
**[7:11 PM] Dagnýr:**  And the pointy ears and extreme height, combined with all of that, don't sound like a birth defect, they sound like something alien.  
  
**[7:12 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens.  
  
**[7:15 PM] Margrét:**  Wow, that pisses me off  
  
**[7:15 PM] Margrét:**  How the fuck is  _burning someone alive_  for supposed "witchcraft" OK?  
  
**[7:16 PM] Margrét:**  And he was HELPING people. It wasn't like that bloke who was burned because he cursed someone to fart themselves to death, or whatever it was.  
  
**[7:17 PM] Sören:**  LOL WHAT THE FUCK  
  
**[7:19 PM] Dagnýr:**  Oh yeah. Fretrúnir, that is a  _thing_ , incidentally from the same period of time, 1600s. The fart curse. But no, our ancestor didn't curse anyone at all, from what I can tell.  
  
**[7:21 PM] Margrét:**  God  
  
**[7:21 PM] Margrét:**  That is so incredibly fucking sad.  
  
**[7:22 PM] Sören:**  ^ that is FUCKED UP  
  
**[7:22 PM] Sören:**  I don't even have words for how fucked that shit is  
  
**[7:22 PM] Sören:**  that is bloody awful  
  
**[7:23 PM] Dagnýr:**  *solemn nodding*  
  
**[7:23 PM] Dagnýr:**  Humans fear what they don't understand, now as then.  
  
**[7:24 PM] Dagnýr:**  There are still people being executed for witchcraft in Third World countries.  
  
**[7:25 PM] Dagnýr:**  And I imagine that if there was an ancient alien walking among us in the present day - one of Tindri's people, perhaps - they would be well aware of that time in history and go to great lengths to hide themselves, from the government, from mobs of "normal" people...  
  
**[7:27 PM] Dagnýr:**  It's why I don't really expect my "aliens were here, u guise" research to be taken seriously even though my astrophysics work is otherwise highly regarded.  
  
**[7:27 PM] Dagnýr:**  Because great claims require great proof, and, well...  
  
**[7:28 PM] Dagnýr:**  ...it makes sense that anybody who could serve as proof, would have figured out how to not call attention to themselves, as a matter of  _basic survival_.  
  
**[7:28 PM] Dagnýr:**  I did this research for myself, mostly, because... well, I needed to. Knowing that we're not just flukes and what we have came from  _somewhere_...  
  
**[7:30 PM] Dagnýr:**  ...it helps me to prepare in case my kids have it, too.  
  
**[7:31 PM] Sören:**  oh hey Nico's back, I gotta go  
  
**[7:31 PM] Sören:**  but... that was really interesting  
  
**[7:32 PM] Sören:**  I'm glad you found what you were looking for  
  
**[7:32 PM] Sören:**  well, not glad-glad, like I'm not glad one of our ancestors was fucking BURNED AT THE STAKE  
  
**[7:32 PM] Sören:**  but you know what I mean.  
  
**[7:33 PM] Dagnýr:**  <3  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Thursday_  
  
After his second piano lesson, Maglor walked into Sören's art room. Sören gestured for him to have a seat, and retrieved a Sprite and a Pepsi from the mini-fridge. Maglor accepted the Sprite, and watched Sören watching him. A few moments of silence passed, and Sören said, at last, "I have something for you."  
  
It was more art, which didn't surprise him, but  _this_  art did. He looked a watercolor portrait of himself hugging Auli, the sheepdog enthusiastically licking his face, in a field of wildflowers, everything softly glowing.  
  
He found himself getting choked up. Because even though as a rule, he didn't like pictures of himself being taken, and that extended to serving as a subject for art - it wasn't exactly keeping a low profile, if there were records of himself that could be compared against other records at different points in time - nonetheless, there was that  _gift_  again, whatever it was Sören had, the ability to paint beyond the immediately obvious outward truth of something, to its deeper reality. Here, was the profound happiness the dog's companionship made him feel.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
"Do you like it?"  
  
"I love it." He swallowed hard. "It'll give me something to remember Auli by, when the summer is over."  
  
"Awwwwwwww, Alejandro." Sören gave him the sad puppy face. "It's so cute the way you love that dog."  
  
Maglor continued looking at the painting. "It's almost like looking at a photograph. Quite impressive, for your first time drawing and painting me."  
  
Sören looked off to the side, and swigged Pepsi.  
  
Maglor's heart skipped a beat. "Sören."  
  
Sören glanced at him, and then off to the side again.  
  
" _Sören._  This isn't the first time you've painted me, have you?"  
  
"No."  
  
Maglor leaned back and folded his arms. "Was it in a gallery anywhere? Did you sell it...?"  
  
"No, and no." Sören met his eyes, finally. "They're in a closet, at home."  
  
"You say they, meaning... more than one...?"  
  
Sören nodded solemnly. "Two."  
  
"I'd like to see them."  
  
_I bet you would,_  Sören broadcasted, and he took another swig of his Pepsi. "Tell you what, since you're coming for dinner and all... you can see them. But I'm not ready to show you them  _right now_ , and I'm not ready to have that hanging over my head for the next couple hours while Nico gets dinner ready, so... you want to go hang out somewhere?"  
  
"OK."  
  
"I have an idea. Why don't we take Auli to the park we were at yesterday? He'd love it there."  
  
And that was how Maglor found himself at the park with Sören, and Auli in tow. As much as Maglor was loath to let Auli run, after losing him earlier in the week, Sören assured him it would be all right, "people let their dogs run around here all the time." Maglor sat on a bench, watching Auli run, while Sören got on the slide and went down, like a big kid, and then climbed it again and went down. "You should try it," Sören yelled.  
  
Maglor felt ridiculous, but he got on the slide, and Sören behind him, Sören laughing all the way down. A few runs of this and he was laughing too, feeling stupid but somehow, happy, as well. They went on the swings like they did yesterday, and Maglor noticed a middle-aged woman had brought a nice Welsh Corgi into the park. The woman let the Corgi off the leash, and the Corgi began running around happily.  
  
That was when Auli ran up to the Corgi, at first sniffing it, and then Maglor and Sören watched as Auli  _mounted_ the other dog, the dogs mating right there. Before Maglor could get over there to break it up, the dogs finished with a howl.  
  
"AULI, YOU CANINE HORROR," Maglor yelled, not able to help the outburst - it was all he could do to not start swearing in his native tongue.  
  
Sören was shaking and turning red with silent laughter, and that just made it worse. Maglor shot Sören a look, and the laughter became not-so-silent.  
  
Maglor approached the Corgi's owner, who had the dog back on her leash now, flustered, a little panicked. "Hi," he said, feeling intensely awkward. "I'm... er, sorry... about that..."  
  
"I am too. I hadn't had her fixed, as she is for breeding other Corgis..."  
  
Maglor ran a nervous hand through his hair. " _Yeahhhh._ " He looked at Sören, who was still cackling. "Um. Well... this is what I can do for you." He pulled out a small notebook and pen from his pocket, and jotted down his cell number. "I'm willing to cover any veterinary expenses, if my dog -" It was easier to just say it was his dog, instead of explaining the rental situation with the dogsitting clause. "- got her pregnant. And any other expenses pertaining to the puppies, as they arise."  
  
" _Takk._ " The woman nodded, and gave Maglor her own cell number, with a name attached. "We'll be in touch, já?"  
  
Sören had Auli on the leash now, who was looking infuriatingly satisfied with himself, and when Maglor came over, Sören's laughter started up again.  
  
"You know..."  
  
"I know." Sören beamed. "Your face, though."  
  
Maglor glared again.  
  
"You're so cute." Sören booped his nose.  
  
"I am not cute."  
  
"Yes, yes you are." Sören patted him. "That was kind of you, to offer to pay vet expenses to the lady."  
  
"I... kind of had to. My father always taught me, if you make a mess, you clean it up." It was so odd, speaking of his father now, speaking of his father to someone who was so much like his father it was painful at times. Fëanor would have the  _same exact_  reaction to this, for example, laughing at Auli's shenanigans and the look on Maglor's face.  
  
Sören held Auli on his lap on the ride back to Svalbarðseyri, and Auli put a paw on each of them, as if to say  _Now you guys._  
  
Maglor's face burned as he thought about the times he'd taken Sören just like that, from behind, Sören bucking against him, the way Sören screamed as he climaxed. They'd experienced every position imaginable, and that particular one was usually reserved for when one or the other was feeling upset by something and needed to  _fuck_  the pain away.  
  
There was, now, too much pain. And yet, the idea of driving into Sören as he did before... he shuddered.  
  
They dropped off Auli at the cottage, and then back at the cabin, Dooku was a welcome sight. Maglor relaxed in his presence, though there was a thin tension at the back of his mind, making him adjust his posture frequently, smooth his hair...  
  
Dooku had put on metal, which was a nice gesture, and he and Dooku spent the remaining time before dinner talking about metal bands, and concerts they'd both gone to, while Sören looked adorable with his cat on his lap, zoning out a little before dinner.  
  
Dinner was delicious - Dooku had made the  _caldo verde_  and  _bacalhau_  recipes that Maglor had taught him last week, and did a phenomenal job. Sören was impressed. Dooku felt too stuffed to go for a walk immediately after dinner, and Sören suggested they watch his brother's TED Talk, which was now up on YouTube.  
  
For the next hour Maglor sat between Dooku and Sören on the couch, Snúdur stretched out so he was on both Sören's and Maglor's laps, getting pettings from both, purring loudly. The content of Dagnýr's TED Talk was disturbing and a little unnerving to Maglor personally - talk of aliens having visited Earth, and alternate universes being plausible, with the idea being further explored as travel between universes being possible through quantum energy, dark matter, and that aliens had not come in spaceships but had come via quantum travel, like a form of teleportation.  
  
_Oh, Dagnýr. If only thou knew._  
  
Maglor remembered Vanimórë's words about other universes. He needed a stiff drink.  
  
When the TED Talk was over, Dooku poured whiskey for all of them. Though the subject matter of the TED Talk had set Maglor on edge, there was nonetheless something about having sat between the two of them on the couch for an hour that was strangely comforting. He'd expected to feel like a third wheel spending time with Sören and Dooku both, and instead he felt  _at home_.  
  
When he'd fallen in love with Sören, years ago, Sören had felt like home to him. He was starting to realize that Dooku, too, had that same feeling. And he had, indeed, been noticing that Dooku was quite handsome - the silver hair, the beard, was exotic to him, distinguished - and  _that deep velvet voice_...  
  
It was a feeling he very much did not want. It was bad enough to pine away for Sören, it was worse to have the stirrings of those same kinds of feelings for  _Dooku_  as well, who was in the sunset of his life and had maybe twenty years at best, realistically far less time if fate was not kind, as it too often was not.  
  
_This is fine._  Maglor downed his whiskey, bitterly.  
  
"You wanted to see those paintings?" Sören asked, knocking back the whiskey like a shot of courage.  
  
Sören went to the closet and came out with two wrapped bundles. He unwrapped them, and put the first one on the coffee table. It was an oil painting. He was depicted here as a merman, pearls in his hair, around his neck and over his chest, playing a harp, with Sören laying in ship wreckage, on the beach of Reynisfjara, waking up, presumably to the sound of the harp.  
  
Maglor had not once mentioned to Sören that he played harp - the only two instruments he'd mentioned knowing, to Sören, were piano and guitar. There was no way Sören could have known this.  
  
He wasn't a merman, but he was non-human, and though it was from Sören's imagination, it was nonetheless close enough to the truth of what he was to feel exposed.  
  
And then the second painting. His mermaid tail was gone, replaced by human legs... human legs that had the evidence of cum on them. They were laying in the sand, Maglor on his back, Sören riding his cock, a look of ecstasy on their faces; Sören was wearing one of the pearl necklaces, with a pearl leash attached to it, the leash wrapped around Maglor's hand. It was erotic - a reminder of the times Sören had ridden him - but even more than that it was breathtaking, in the aesthetic beauty and the emotion of it, the  _love_  that had gone into the piece, so long ago.  
  
Sören looked down, flushed bright red.  
  
Maglor could feel himself flushing, as well. Dooku, bless him, was in the kitchen making tea, giving them as private a moment as they could get in the small cabin. Maglor didn't know what to say. He felt too many things, then, fighting the urge to break down and cry.  
  
"There's a third painting that goes with them. It's... it's not quite like the other two."  
  
The third had a human heart on the beach, blooding the black sand, while a kraken loomed in raging waves, under a stormy sky.  
  
Maglor's heart went in his throat. He could feel the pain, the  _rage_ , that had gone into this painting. A vision in his mind's eye of Sören painting with his headphones on - Kanye West? some of his angrier, more aggressive songs? - and with every stroke...  _how dare you. how dare you walk away from me, how dare you walk back into my life like this. how dare you make me still_  feel for you  _five years later. you destroyed me. I will not let you destroy me again._  
  
The fury in Sören's dark eyes, dark like a volcanic mountain.  
  
_If I knew what I knew in the past  
I would have been blacked out on your ass_  
  
The thunder of the drums, the rising waves, a threatening tidal wave.  
  
Maglor looked away, forcing himself to step out of that part of the Song, that was enough now.  
  
There was a long silence. Sören had the paintings wrapped up again and back in the closet when Dooku brought tea.  
  
If Maglor had been able to say  _anything_  - and what was there to say, to all of that? - he couldn't say it in front of Dooku, now. Sören stared into his tea, looking sad rather than angry now, broadcasting sorrow and exhaustion instead of the rage that had gone into the third painting.  
  
Dooku navigated the awkward silence deftly, bringing up their time tomorrow. "What would you like to make this time?"  
  
"We did Portuguese food last week, so if you want to make something Romanian..."  
  
"That sounds fair."  
  
There were some pleasantries about how his guitar and piano classes were going, and at last, Maglor decided to return home, sensing Sören needed to unplug emotionally, and he did as well.  
  
"I'll walk you over," Dooku told him, and smiled. Maglor gave a little smile back, and felt that pang of guilt for finding Dooku attractive.  _Being attracted._  Wanting both of them, and it was a terrible idea to even want one, never mind both,  _two_  mortals who would be dead and gone...  
  
Sören got up, and they paused at the door. Dooku stepped outside to give them another moment.  
  
"The first two paintings were beautiful," Maglor told him, truthfully. "The third was... well... it's hard to describe in words. But you don't know how sorry I am for the pain I've caused you, and it means a lot to me that you're trying to be friends."  
  
Sören nodded; he'd been looking down, and then he looked up, again. He reached for Maglor's hand - the scarred one - and held it for a moment. Just a brief moment, but long enough for Maglor to feel that sharp pang of arousal, wanting nothing more than to slam Sören against the wall and kiss him until they couldn't kiss anymore. "It means a lot to me that you came here, to try to be friends." A small, sad smile.  
  
"I'll see you on Monday."  
  
Sören nodded. "Have a good weekend, Alejandro."  
  
Maglor lingered for a few seconds, again, fighting off the urge to kiss Sören, make it better somehow, but he  _could not_ , and he sensed he would be rebuffed if he did, anyway.  
  
He walked alongside Dooku, in silence. Feeling less comfortable with the old man than he did before. Because he  _wanted_. And that never worked out for him. He could not allow himself hope. He could only allow himself the little bit of warmth, of friendship that was offered. That would have to be good enough.


	24. Missing Pieces

**Missing Pieces**

 

 _Friday_  
  
Dooku was woken up not by the alarm, but by Sören gently rubbing his chest - fingers combing the chest hair, playing with it - and raining sweet, soft little kisses all over his face. When Sören kissed the tip of his nose, Dooku smiled, and stretched. He watched through not-yet-fully-awake eyes as Sören leaned over to turn off the alarm, and rolled back next to him.  
  
"Usually I'm up before you," Dooku said, stroking Sören's face, "watching you sleep."  
  
Sören nodded. "This time I watched you sleep. I woke up a little while ago." He resumed giving Dooku little kisses, and then at last, claimed his mouth. When he did, Dooku felt Sören's hard-on rubbing against his thigh. Dooku groaned into the kiss, hands roaming over Sören's back and ass, squeezing the firm, perfect bubble as his own cock began to harden.  
  
"Mmmmm." Sören kissed him again, and started kissing his neck. "I want you."  
  
Dooku laughed softly, kissing him back. "You are insatiable." They had made love for close to two hours last night, before going to sleep, and here Sören was again, hungry for more. Dooku once again marveled that he'd been slightly concerned Sören's interest would wane when he gave Sören permission to see other people, and instead the opposite had happened - Sören was even more passionate with him now, his appetite stronger, as if the more he had, the more he wanted.  
  
Not that Dooku minded, pulling down Sören's pajama bottoms as Sören pulled his down, their hard cocks sliding together. Sören was already leaking precum - a delicious sight, made more delicious as Sören's precum dripped onto Dooku's own cock in little streamers.  
  
Sören's T-shirt and Dooku's pajama top landed on the floor alongside the bottoms, and Dooku didn't even bother to use the Force to fold them neatly. Instead, he used the Force to bring over their bottle of lube, as Sören straddled his hips, Sören's hands on his chest again, playing with the silver pelt.  
  
Dooku propped himself against the pillows so he was half-lying down, half-sitting up, and Sören poured lube over Dooku's cock and massaged it slowly, leaning down to kiss him as his hand worked its magic. Dooku's hands ran over Sören's naked body, enjoying the feel of his soft, smooth skin, his lithe, slender frame. Then, two slick fingers slipped into Sören, as Dooku's free hand continued to caress. Sören moaned and fucked himself on Dooku's fingers, rocking his hips; Dooku always found the prostate right away, rubbing in slow circles, and across their Force bond he could feel Sören's pleasure, already close to the edge.  
  
Then Dooku realized, with how ready Sören was already... His lips quirked with amusement as he raised an eyebrow. "Were you touching yourself?"  
  
Sören nodded, giving a guilty grin, biting his lower lip. "Thinking about you."  
  
Dooku groaned at the luscious mental image of Sören lazily stroking himself as he fantasized. They kissed again, and Dooku gave a playful hard swat to Sören's ass, making Sören gasp and then buck against his fingers harder, faster. "I need you in me  _now_ ," Sören rasped.  
  
Dooku guided his cock to Sören's opening; Sören took his hands and sank down on his cock, slowly. Dooku moaned at the sight of Sören's channel swallowing down his cock, and again when he was buried to the hilt inside him. Sören leaned in to kiss him, hard, and Dooku wrapped his arms around Sören, kissing back. Sören began to ride, slowly, and then sped up, biting his lip, giving Dooku a naughty look through hooded, hungry eyes.  
  
Soon Sören was riding him hard, and Dooku drove into him, panting, gasping, the sweetness of Sören wrapped around him almost too much to bear. Sören's broken cries and the slap of their flesh brought him close to the edge and he stayed there, wanting Sören to come first, wanting to drink this to the dregs, savor the slick velvet heat of him and the sight of his wild beauty lost in the throes of passion. Dooku's hands caressed Sören's body, making Sören tremble and moan, and his fingers lingered at the nipples, playing with the nipple rings he found so alluring. When Dooku leaned up to draw a nipple into his mouth, the wail that came out of Sören almost set him off right then and there. He grabbed Sören's hips and slowed them both down, teasing, his tongue lapping Sören's nipple before suckling, then gently tugging the ring with his teeth, suckling again. Sören was gasping for breath now, clutching his head, quivering.  
  
"Nico..."  
  
"Almost there, love." Dooku turned his head to the other nipple, to pleasure that as well. "You're so beautiful. Want to enjoy you..." He suckled, hard.  
  
"Oh, Nico,  _fuck_..."  
  
Dooku's fingers collected Sören's precum, dripping even more copiously from the head of Sören's cock down the shaft, and he stuck his fingers in Sören's mouth, groaning appreciatively at the sight of Sören's full lips sucking like he would a cock. He kissed Sören, tasting it, as his fingers collected more precum and anointed Sören's swollen nipples. He lowered his head to feast on them, licking, sucking, and Sören let out a strangled sob, nails digging into Dooku's arms.  
  
"I need to  _come_ ," Sören howled.  
  
"I'm sure you do." Dooku tugged on a nipple ring with his teeth again, licked some more, and then his tongue traced upwards, from Sören's chest all the way up his neck, amused and aroused by the way Sören shivered, the little whimpers he made at the licking across his flesh. He nibbled Sören's neck, and at the plaintive cry Sören made, he chuckled, giving in. "Ride me, darling. Hold nothing back."  
  
Sören pushed Dooku back down onto the pillows, keeping his hands on Dooku's chest, and his hips rocked as hard and fast as they could, giving Dooku the ride of his life. Dooku felt the orgasm building, his body shaking - even his thighs were quivering - and the harder he resisted, wanting Sören to come first, the more intense the sensation, winding deep and high, ready to explode. When Sören erupted, white-hot cum spraying all over his chest and stomach, Dooku let go with a hoarse shout, spending deep into Sören's clenching, throbbing channel, and for a moment, the world seemed to dissolve into light.  
  
He came back still panting, trying to catch his breath, Sören shaking in his arms; he could feel Sören's toes curling against his feet, and he smiled, then gave another groan as he felt Sören contract around him again, which triggered an aftershock pulse of his own climax, so intense it almost  _hurt_. Sören lifted his face, smiled, and nuzzled him, before planting a soft, sweet kiss on the tip of his nose.  
  
"Good morning," Sören mumbled.  
  
Dooku laughed out loud. He patted Sören's ass. "It is a good morning, yes."  
  
Sören rested his head on Dooku's shoulder for a few minutes and Dooku rocked him, arms tightening around him. Across his mind's eye, a vision of Sören-not-Sören laying against him just like this, the room glowing after a surge of brilliant light like the one he'd just seen.  _No matter who else I love, you are always the light of my soul, my Ñolo._  
  
Dooku's consciousness snapped back, and he chewed on that thought for a moment. He had always wondered why Sören had called him Nico - something no one else had ever called him, indeed few people even called him Nicolae - and now he pondered if, on a subconscious level, Sören called him that because it was close enough to this  _Ñolo_  name, whatever it was, a remnant from a past incarnation together.  
  
The thought that they'd found their way back to each other, somehow, was deeply comforting. Dooku let out a soft sigh of contentment, and nuzzled Sören's curls, planted a kiss in them.  
  
"That was fucking awesome," Sören said, finally, stretching out like a cat.  
  
"It was." Dooku smiled. He stroked Sören's face. "I must say, I'm enjoying seeing this new fire in you."  
  
"It's a little scary. I've always been a horndog, I know, but lately..." Sören gave a shy little smile. "This is more than my usual."  
  
They sat up together, and lingered for a moment, holding each other. Then Sören said, "So... tonight is Van night for me."  
  
Dooku nodded. "That's just as well, because I think you did me in for the rest of the day."  
  
Sören laughed. "Ohhhh, I think I could get you going again if I really wanted to." He got up and gave a playful shake of his ass. Then he grinned over his shoulder. "But you can wait till tomorrow when I'm back. It's more fun that way, anyway."  
  
Dooku gave Sören's ass a playful swat. "Tease."  
  
"You love it." Then Sören laughed out loud as the smack made the cum start leaking out of him, puddling onto the floor. "Oh god."  
  
"Oh dear."  
  
"I better... clean up the rest of this."  
  
Dooku didn't know what came over him suddenly - perhaps the energy of Sören's increased sex drive and newfound swagger - but he heard himself saying, "Well, I might have plans for it."  
  
And that was how Sören ended up with his thighs on Dooku's shoulders, sucking Dooku off as his tongue worked slowly and deliberately inside Sören's channel, licking up the deposit of seed he'd left, driving Sören crazy with each stroke of his tongue, until they came together, clenching each other's hands as the passion exploded.  
  
Dooku felt like he couldn't move, after. The first orgasm was intense, and a second orgasm just as shattering... He was vaguely aware of Sören getting ready to go to the studio, and then a fully clothed Sören leaning over him, giggling, as he rained more kisses over his face and gently tucked him in. "See you later, sleepyhead."  
  
Dooku managed a weak mumble in response. He woke up a couple hours later, to Snúdur wanting attention. He dragged himself out of bed, still feeling like jelly on legs. He was smiling as he made tea in the kitchen area. For now, the ever-present dread of his own mortality was far away.  
  
For now.  
  
  
_  
  
Van attended Sören's Friday ceramics class in the afternoon, and it was all Sören could do to keep his hands off him, not throw Van onto the table and ride him there in front of everyone, not caring. When Van dropped Sören off at the cabin so they could both take time to change and get ready for their date, Sören kissed him hard, and it turned into a passionate makeout session, kissing and groping, until Van gave him a gentle push, a few last soft kisses. "We have time for that later, beauty," he said.  
  
"Oh, all right." Sören gave him a sad look, then a grin, and one last kiss before he hopped out of the Bentley.  
  
Dooku was in a good mood, and he and Sören hugged and kissed warmly when Sören got in. Dooku was already ready to go to the cottage, but would wait to walk Sören over. Sören took a shower first, and then changed into the leather pants and the black ruffly shirt that seemed to be his go-to outfit for date night.  
  
Sören added a few drops of Kyoto, and a little touch of eyeliner and mascara, and he was good to go. He grabbed the leash and collar on the way out, gave a few last skritches and kisses to Snúdur, and hand in hand, Dooku and Sören walked up the street.  
  
Alejandro let them in. Auli came over for pettings, and Sören stooped to pet Auli until Van approached, giving a soft clear of his throat.  
  
Though Sören and Van were not going to stop seeing each other to make Alejandro comfortable, they also had decided after last week's fiasco to be a bit more reserved in Alejandro's presence. So Van simply took Sören's hand, and Sören gave a polite wave as Van walked him out to the Bentley.  
  
They went to the same seafood restaurant as they had last week, though it was not food Sören was hungry for. After the restaurant, Sören and Van went back to Van's hotel room, and after Van took a few minutes in the bathroom, he retrieved a bottle of champagne. He turned on the fireplace in their hotel room, though it was not chilly tonight, and lit candles around the room for further ambiance. Sören noticed that Van had likely been in the room before the ceramics class started, preparing - there was bedding in front of the fireplace, a pile of pillows.  
  
They curled up together in front of the fireplace, naked, drinking champagne. Before Sören's glass was completely drained, he had a moment of feeling mischievous, and poured the remnants over Van's chest, pushing him back against the pillows, licking it off. Van groaned beneath the work of Sören's tongue, and then he dribbled a little of his glass over his now-hard cock, groaning more deeply as Sören licked that, too, not wanting any to go to waste. Sören lapped up precum, and came up to kiss Van, who then poured out the rest of his glass over Sören's chest and rolled Sören onto his back to give him the same treatment, Sören arching to him and moaning, clutching Van's head as he cleaned the champagne with slow, deliberate strokes of his tongue.  
  
Van took the bottle and poured more champagne onto Sören's body, licking him all over, until Sören was writhing, gasping "please..."  
  
But Van wasn't done yet. He rolled Sören onto his stomach and poured champagne over his back. When Van's tongue dipped inside him, Sören screamed into the pillows, grabbing them with white-knuckled. "Please, take me..."  
  
Van's response was to get a bottle of oil that had been warming by the fireplace. He drizzled the oil over Sören's shoulders and back, and began to rub it in. It was just like that first night they were together four years ago, but this time they would take all night, and this time Sören felt even more cared for.  
  
Sex was not love, but nonetheless there was something in Van's touch, and indeed, the way he knew just what Sören needed - that he needed something like this, after the whirlwind of the past month... and Sören sensed that somehow he'd need something like this to hold onto for whatever the next whirlwind was on the horizon - that made Sören feel safe with him, trust him, surrender to him. He was definitely a little in love with Van, not something he would tell him right now, not wanting to face possible rejection and ruin the good thing they had going, but Sören soaked up the tenderness of his touch, the affection that he'd been starved for too much of his life - he'd only had a precious few years of being loved, being treated as lovable.  
  
And Sören, in turn, wanted to make this good for him, wanted to return that same care, that same tenderness, attentiveness to Van's needs. When Van had massaged Sören both back and front, Sören worked on Van's back, hard cock rubbing against his backside, giving little kisses in the wake of where his fingers had been, smiling as Van shivered. When Van was on his back, looking up at him, Sören took a moment to stroke his face and kiss him deeply, before pouring oil over his chest and stomach and thighs. Rubbing, kneading, in circles, spirals. "Beautiful," Sören husked as his hands worked over him. "You are a work of art, Van. You are a vision made flesh." He planted a kiss on Van's chest, over his heart, thinking about all the charity work he did - in his mind's eye Sören got a glimpse of Van disguising himself to blend in so he could help the homeless hands-on, without being recognized, and it brought tears to Sören's eyes, though he wouldn't let Van know what he saw, not wanting to reveal his own Force sensitivity.  
  
_Even though it would be OK._  
  
_...You don't_  know  _that._  
  
Growing up with his aunt and uncle, who had beaten it out of him - being bullied in school carefully trying to pass for "normal", never mind revealing his gifts - had taught Sören it wasn't safe to open up about what he could do. Dooku was the first one he'd ever come clean with, and that only because Dooku had seen him turn on a faucet without touching it. Indeed, meeting Dooku felt  _fated_ , the odds of a Force sensitive discovering another Force sensitive like that. Sören had even hid his gifts as best as he could from Alejandro, much as he wondered from time to time - and still did - if Alejandro might not be Force sensitive himself.  
  
As badly as he wanted to reveal himself doing something like moving the oil bottle without touching it, in the intimacy of their tenderness, Sören held back. But his lips lingered there, on Van's heart, until Van grabbed Sören's curls, pulling him up, and kissed him roughly. Sören cried out into the kiss, cock throbbing, and cried out again as he felt his cock slide against Van's.  
  
Van pushed him onto his back now, the two kissing deeply, hungrily, as their cocks rubbed together. Sören arched to him again, panting for it, legs spread. Then he remembered the collar and leash, which he'd left on the bed, not thinking. And, without thinking, too caught up in the passion of the moment, the leash and collar sailed behind Van's back and landed gently on the floor near them.  _Oh shit,_  Sören thought to himself, swallowing hard. Before he could nudge with the Force to move the leash and collar back to the bed, Van reached for the champagne near them, and saw the leash and collar.  
  
He said nothing about how it got there, and Sören wondered if he hadn't in fact noticed, or if he was choosing to not make a big deal of it right now. Van instead poured them each a flute of champagne, sitting up a little, and Sören sat up as well. After they drained their glasses, they kissed again, and then Sören felt Van put the collar around his neck, clipping the leash through. Gently, Van pushed Sören back against the pillows, leash wrapped around his hand, stroking Sören's face and petting his curls as they resumed kissing, their cocks rubbing together again.  
  
Then their eyes met. "Relax," Van said.  
  
Sören wondered if that was a signal that he knew and it was fine, or if he didn't know but had sensed tension. Either way, Sören responded to the command, trusting him, letting his muscles uncoil a bit.  
  
"Good boy," Van said, and leaned in to kiss him again.  
  
Sören wrapped his arms around him, bucking up against him, rubbing more insistently. " _Please_ ," Sören gasped between kisses.  
  
Van kissed, licked, and nibbled his neck. "We have all night, darling."  
  
"Please. I  _need._ " Their eyes met again, and Sören husked, "I need  _you._ "  
  
Van kissed him hard, and Sören's nails dug into his back. Van retrieved the oil once more, and poured over Sören's opening. Sören whimpered as he felt the warm oil dripping inside him, shuddering as he thought of what it would feel like when Van at last came inside him. "Please, please," Sören panted.  
  
Van began to push into him, slowly, and when he was all the way inside, they kissed again, and then Van's lips lingered between kisses, giving Sören a sultry look. He came down to kiss Sören deeply as he took his first few thrusts, achingly slowly, making Sören melt to him.  
  
Even with taking it slow, Sören was so worked up from all of the teasing, and the feeling of intimacy and trust, and now the sweet rubbing against his prostate, that he was undone in a matter of minutes, coming without being touched. " _Elskan_ ," he cried out, not able to help it, as he exploded, splattering Van's chest and stomach with his seed. Van took a few more thrusts, bringing Sören even higher, deeper, until Sören was sobbing, trembling, contracting and contracting. Van rested in him, still hard, giving Sören a moment to recover.  
  
Then he fluttered sweet kisses over Sören's face, a soft, lingering kiss on Sören's mouth. Their mouths parted and tongues danced again, and Sören let out an "mmmmm" as the kiss heated.  
  
When they pulled apart, Sören stammered, "I'm sorry, I -"  
  
Van grinned. "I'm not."  
  
Sören blushed, biting his lower lip, crinkling his nose - and then noticed the way Van was looking at him when he did that. He could feel Van  _jolt_  inside him, cock harder, pulsing. Despite the predatory look in Van's eyes as he watched Sören's shy, almost-innocent reaction, his touch was gentle across Sören's face, down to his chest. "I want to please you, beauty," Van said, and his hand lingered there, over Sören's heart. Sören took his hand and squeezed. Van leaned in and whispered, "You'll come again," before claiming his mouth once more.  
  
"I want to make  _you_  come," Sören husked between kisses, his cock already standing at attention, recovered and ready for more. "We'll come together."  
  
Van kissed him harder, and began to thrust again, this time harder and faster than before, but not as hard as it would go, later. Sören wrapped his arms and legs around Van, arching to him, rolling his hips to match Van's rhythm. He admired the beauty of Van in the firelight, candlelight, the play of light and shadows across his perfect body and lovely face - and for an instant, his gaze wandered to the fire itself, their bodies moving in the same rhythm of the flames.  
  
_Burn with me._  Sören held on tight, crying out as the flames danced faster and Van's rhythm sped up, more aggressive. "Yes, yes,  _yes, more_..."  
  
_  
  
The shopping bag Dooku had brought to Alejandro's contained a number of food items, as well as a fresh bottle of Brennivín which he'd brought as a gift.  
  
Dinner was  _ardei umpluţi_ , Romanian stuffed peppers - there were red, green, and yellow bell peppers, and Dooku's mother's recipe called for beef or pork, wild rice, tomato, onion, cream and spices. For dessert there would be  _papanasi prajiti_ , fried doughnuts with cottage cheese and jam. Dooku and Alejandro worked well together in the kitchen, listening to the metal station as they prepared ingredients and cooked. Dooku felt a little pang that they only little over a month before Vigdís and Páll would come back from their trip in the States, and then... Alejandro would be gone.  
  
_I'll miss him._  
  
It wasn't that he didn't like his neighbors, but he connected with Alejandro in a way he didn't connect with them. They had a glass of red wine as they waited for the food to finish up, and Alejandro noticed Dooku looking pensive.  
  
"Króna for your thoughts," Alejandro said.  
  
"Oh." Dooku frowned. "I was just thinking... you only have a month left, here, and I'd..." He swallowed hard. "I'd like to keep in touch with you when you leave, wherever it is you go."  
  
Alejandro was quiet at that, and Dooku worried for a moment that he'd said the wrong thing, but then Alejandro said, "I'll see what I can do." At Dooku's puzzled look, he explained, "I'm actually not sure  _where_  I'm going, when they come back."  
  
_Stay._  Dooku wanted to slap himself for reacting like that, especially with how much that reaction was similar to the way he'd gotten attached to Sören so quickly, in 2017.  
  
Indeed, this was like Sören all over again, except not. Dooku sipped his wine, not liking where this train of thought was taking him; his cheeks were flushed from more than just the wine.  
  
"Don't you have someplace to go back to?" Dooku raised an eyebrow. He leaned back in his chair. "You were in the States, right?"  
  
"Did Sören tell you that?"  
  
"No, I can tell from your accent. I observe people. Observation was a large part of my job description for four decades."  
  
"Hm." Alejandro sipped his wine. "I was in the States. Alaska, to be precise."  
  
Dooku was surprised by that - he would have thought someplace like New York or Los Angeles for a musician. On the other hand, neither of those places  _felt right_ , for what he sensed of Alejandro's energy. Of course he'd want to be somewhere out of the way, somewhere in the beauty of nature. That was something Dooku himself could appreciate, thriving on his life here in rural Iceland after the hectic pace of London.  
  
"Did you like it?" Dooku asked.  
  
"I was too depressed to really like anything, but I suppose."  
  
"I'm sorry to hear that. I know depression is a common affliction of creative people."  
  
"Particularly those with a broken heart." Alejandro downed his glass.  
  
Saved by the bell - the timer went off and they checked the food, which was ready to be served. They ate outside, enjoying the warm weather and the glow of the midnight sun, and Auli ran around and didn't beg too much.  
  
"It's nice to see he's behaving," Dooku said between bites of food.  
  
"Barely." Alejandro rolled his eyes. "He, ah." He sipped on another glass of wine. "Had a little fun at the park yesterday."  
  
"Oh really."  
  
Alejandro nodded. "There was a Corgi there. Auli... er."  
  
Dooku's eyes widened and his laughter rang out. "Oh no.  _Oh no._ "  
  
"Oh yes. I got the dog owner's number and offered to pay any veterinary expenses, if the Corgi turns out to be pregnant. I didn't know what else to do."  
  
"That was generous of you."  
  
"Well, it's like I told Sören yesterday, my father taught me that if you make a mess, you clean it." Alejandro looked off into the distance. "I suppose that is the entire reason why I'm here."  
  
Dooku waited a moment, choosing his words carefully. Then he said, "I'm not glad that Sören had his heart broken and suffered like he did, and I imagine it wasn't an easy time for you either."  
  
"No, it was not."  
  
Their eyes met. "But I'm glad you're here. I'm glad I got the chance to meet you."  
  
Alejandro held out his glass, and their glasses touched. He managed a small smile. "So am I."  
  
_  
  
After the wonderful meal, they took Auli for a walk, then returned to the cottage and sat together on the couch, perusing Vigdís and Páll's selection of DVDs, as well as the few Maglor had brought with him from Alaska. Neither of them seemed much in the mood to watch anything that was available, and then Dooku said, "Their TV can use the wi-fi, yes? Like if we wanted to watch YouTube?"  
  
"Yes." Maglor nodded.  
  
Dooku's lips quirked. "Have you ever watched  _Metalocalypse_?"  
  
"What?" Maglor was confused.  
  
"I see not. Well then..." Dooku grabbed the remote and after fiddling with it and not being able to figure it out, Maglor took the remote and got it to load YouTube. Maglor typed "metalocalypse" into the search bar.  
  
"It's a cartoon?" Maglor couldn't believe Dooku was asking him to watch a cartoon.  
  
"It's a cartoon about a  _metal band_. Sören got me into it shortly after I moved out here. He said, I quote, 'All citizens of Scandinavian countries are required by law to watch this.' He was joking, obviously..."  
  
"Obviously." Maglor felt a little pang; he'd missed Sören's humor, which included Scandinavian jokes.  
  
"But I thought since you and I both like metal, this might be enjoyable to you."  
  
Dooku opened the bottle of Brennivín he'd brought, and poured them each a shot glass, throwing the horns to make a toast. Maglor threw the horns back and they laughed as they drank.  
  
And that was how Maglor found himself watching  _Metalocalypse_ , on the couch next to Dooku, with Auli curled up between them. Dooku decided to start him in order, and they binge-watched the first six episodes. Maglor enjoyed it more than he thought he would, knowing a few things about the excesses of the music industry, enjoying the way the show satirized it - he found himself laughing so hard he teared up during "Dethfam", crying a little as he remembered his own family and their antics in the days before the Doom, missing them and the joy and fun they once had, but also laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of the Dethklok family album.  
  
They'd each had a second shot of Brennivín halfway through, and as they pet Auli together, their hands occasionally brushed. Maglor could smell Dooku's cologne, which was delicious and inviting. He was getting more acutely aware of the proximity, the warmth, and starting to feel a little aroused. This was not good.  
  
"That was great," Dooku said after "Dethfam" ended.  
  
"That wasn't great." Maglor smiled despite himself. "That was...  _BRUTAL._ "  
  
Dooku threw the horns, and they laughed together.  
  
"Do you want to watch another episode?" Dooku asked.  
  
"In a bit, maybe?"  
  
Dooku put on  _Star Trek: The Next Generation_. Auli got up, went to get food and water, and then he climbed up on Maglor. Comforted by the snuggling sheepdog, Maglor wrapped his arms around him, and relaxed a little.  
  
"So..." Dooku said, "what were you doing in Alaska?"  
  
Even though he didn't use the Alejandro Magalhães identity in Alaska and kept as low a profile as he could, there had been of course Google listing his business, so there was a non-zero chance that if Dooku fished hard enough he could find Mark Lowry, and that was not something Maglor was prepared to deal with just yet. He decided on the version of the truth that was more emotionally revealing than revealing of what he'd been doing for a living there, even though the emotional truth was more uncomfortable, more raw. "Watching the Northern Lights and grieving the loss of mine."  
  
Dooku sighed, and nodded. "It was difficult for him too, from what he told me."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"It was intensely difficult during the few months he and I were separated." Dooku looked away.  
  
"I bet." And then, emboldened by the alcohol, Maglor's curiosity finally got the better of him. "You know..."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"You don't seem like the kind of guy who... you know." Maglor made a vague hand gesture, not wanting to come right out and say it, not wanting to  _be reminded_  of the way Vanimórë had found Sören. But it was clear Dooku didn't know what he was on about, so he had to go there. "Goes to gay clubs looking to pick up men."  
  
"I'm not," Dooku said. "And neither are you, are you?"  
  
"Very much not. I don't do casual sex." Not even sex with Vanimórë could be considered casual - theirs was indeed the most complicated and messy of the arrangements Maglor had known in his lifetime.  
  
"So, we seem to be rather the exception to Sören's history. I imagine there's an interesting story behind how you and he met."  
  
"He didn't tell you?"  
  
"You've been a difficult, painful subject for him, so no, he didn't tell me. I only know that you were involved, that you lived together, traveled together, and the circumstances of your breakup."  
  
"It was Reykjavik, 2009. I'd been in the country for about six months, was playing the odd show here and there. Sören was at a coffeehouse one night and he worked with oil pastels as I played, inspired by what I was playing. He gave the finished product to me, and I was impressed, both by the thoughtfulness of the gesture and the quality of the work."  _The way he'd seen into my head, somehow._  "We started up a friendship. It became more."  
  
"That's beautiful."  
  
"It was beautiful, while it lasted." Maglor had another shot of Brennivín, even though he was already buzzed between that and the wine. "Now, what about you? How did you and Sören meet?"  
  
"London, fall 2017. My dear friend Leja, who is my goddaughter, was opening her gallery. Sören had a show there, and I admired several of his paintings, and told him as much. I then found him in the bathroom, having a panic attack. Crying."  
  
Little alarm bells went off in Maglor's head. That was  _not_  like the Sören he knew. Sören could be shy, yes, neither of them liked crowds, but not once in the time they'd been together, in all of Sören's showings during those years, had there been a meltdown like that. Just the opposite.  _Something_  happened  _between the time we broke up and the time Dooku found him._  He sipped the Brennivín, not liking what he was sensing.  _Something,_ someone,  _broke his spirit._  
  
"We struck up a friendship from there," Dooku said, cutting back into his thoughts. "I found myself drawn to him, which was... surprising to me because I normally don't let people in past an arm's length. I wasn't one for relationships, let alone..." He didn't need to go on; Maglor was aware of the nature of their relationship. Dooku flushed, and worked on his shot glass. "I fell in love with him. Despite our age difference, despite coming from two different worlds. He stole my heart. As he undoubtedly stole yours, years ago."  
  
_He still has it._  Maglor nodded solemnly.  
  
"It was like a magnet being drawn to metal." Dooku swirled the Brennivín around in his glass. "It was finding a piece of myself that I didn't know was missing."  
  
"Yes, very much like that," Maglor heard himself saying aloud, and then wished he could take those words back.  
  
But they were said, and their eyes met again. "You never really get over someone like that."  
  
"No, you don't." It was comforting and painful all at once to know that Dooku understood, and sympathized with him. That they, both, had been transformed by Sören's fire and would never be the same again.  
  
"I was drawn to his art first," Dooku said, leaning back in his chair. "If one believes in love at first sight... looking back on it now, I think I fell in love with him the moment I saw those paintings in the gallery. Laying eyes on Sören himself, of course, and getting to know the beautiful person who created such beautiful work... there was that, as well. But in those first moments where I wandered the gallery, feeling like he'd reached in and bared something in my soul with his work..."  
  
"It does that." Maglor nodded, remembering. He nursed his shot glass, debated having another, and decided he'd had enough. He was already feeling exposed enough, and at that point where he wasn't quite able to stop. He had a feeling that if Dooku asked him who he really was, he'd end up telling him, in this state.  
  
_And yet, thou wilt not tell him of thy feelings for him.  
  
...Canst thou not._  
  
Maglor looked at Dooku, and said, "But you're just a patron of the arts, not an artist yourself...?"  
  
"I write, these days," Dooku said, "though it's not the same as painting or making music."  
  
"But it's still an act of creation."  
  
"Yes. Something that... I never would have seen myself doing, honestly, but once I retired, I had to figure out what I was going to do with myself - it's hard to start over with a new career at my age, in a brand new country. And I guess you could say Sören's creative energy had some sort of effect on me."  
  
_Thou hast no idea._  "Mmm. What were you doing before?"  
  
"I was a barrister."  
  
"Crown Prosecution, or defense?"  
  
"Defense." Dooku nodded. "I know there's a bit of a stigma against criminal defense, but I had my reasons for going into that branch of law."  
  
Maglor waited, and Dooku went on. Maglor got the sense that it wasn't just him who was loosening up under the influence. "When I was a young lad at boarding school," Dooku said, "back in the early 1960s, I had a bit of an unrequited crush on my roommate. We had an exam and he stole an answer sheet, I found out he had it and urged him to give it back, and he said he would file false charges against me. Inappropriate behavior, when I had never been that way towards him, and would additionally lie and say I was the one who had stolen the sheet. He didn't get to make those charges, only because I had the foresight to pull the fire alarm before he could go in to report me."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"It gets worse - after his expulsion, he came back and he and his friends set my room on fire while I was in it. I escaped with my life."  
  
"That's awful."  
  
"I'm afraid to say that it was not the first time I'd experienced bullying at that school. I was a disappointment to my parents, as well, especially my father - well, you don't want to hear about that." Dooku pinched the bridge of his nose and downed his glass, setting the shot glass down on the table. "Anyway... what I took away from that experience at boarding school is that for a twist of fate - the right timing - I could have, and would have, been punished for something I didn't do, and though the social structure in the UK is such that a man of my class would have had a better crash landing following expulsion than someone else in a lower class being expelled from school or fired from their job, it still would have negatively impacted my life. And of course I attended Oxford starting in the late 1960s, and though I was a 'square' who kept a conservative appearance and didn't do drugs, for the sake of my schooling, I still developed fairly left-leaning values, a passion for civil rights, in the climate of the era, and studying the way many disenfranchised, marginalized people had been accused of crimes they didn't commit, punished for crimes they didn't commit,  _or_  had committed crimes but often had been pushed into that lifestyle because they really had no other options. So it was that I went into law to stand up for those who couldn't defend themselves. Of course, there are always people who do wrong for the wrong reasons, feel no remorse, and  _should_  be punished, and I always had a sick feeling when I defended those people. But I had said many times over the course of my career that I would defend the 99 people who willingly had done something wrong, to acquit the one who was there on false charges... and to keep the justice system running as it should, a fair trial for everyone. And those who were not sociopaths but had been pushed into a criminal act or lifestyle because of poverty and other societal ills, I tried to do what I could, pulling strings where I could, to get them some kind of help. I cared. Perhaps too much, at times."  
  
Dooku was a calm, quiet man, but there was a power behind his words, a latent fire burning, hard and bright as a diamond. Maglor had chills down his spine. He already liked Dooku - more than he should, and more than just platonically - and now... he thought of the way Fingolfin had sworn himself to Fëanor's cause, even when they were damned and doomed, not simply because of the love of Fëanor, but the love of justice itself, the  _anger_  that burned against the Valar, punishing the Noldor for their pride, hypocrites, the Valar the most prideful and arrogant of all.  
  
Maglor didn't know what to say to all of that. He  _couldn't_  say anything, tongue-tied, feeling a little bit of awe in the presence of this mortal, the way he had felt awe in the presence of his uncle.  
  
Indeed, it had been Fingolfin's heart that Fëanor loved. Maglor had no doubt that, despite the age difference and their very different backgrounds, Sören had been drawn to Dooku's sense of justice, hatred of oppression. Sören was so very much like his father, and Dooku like Fingolfin.  
  
Dooku's voice cut into his thoughts again. "I've lived a rather boring life, until comparatively recently, under wigs and robes, arguing all the time."  
  
"I wouldn't call that boring at all."  
  
"I wasn't really living. I didn't have much of anything outside my career, and the sacrifices I made for it. For example, I was single until Sören. If I had risked a relationship back in the 1970s, 80s, even the 1990s, it would have been career suicide, with my orientation and the potential for being outed."  
  
"That's indeed unfortunate." Maglor nodded. He had, of course, lived a very long time, and had kept a rein on his own appetites because of societal attitudes being what they were over the centuries. The last time he'd allowed himself to touch mortal flesh in that way, before Sören, had been ancient Rome, and people died much younger then than they did these days. And the average age of mortality today was still far too soon, for an Elf.  
  
_Gods,_  it had been too long, drying up inside. Sören's fire on the dry, parched dying weeds of his life had been quite the inferno.  
  
"But you." Dooku gestured to him. "You're a little more than half my age, and you've tasted far more of life than I have."  _And of Sören,_  Dooku broadcasted. Maglor's cheeks flushed. "And I imagine you must have had quite a colorful life, as a musician."  
  
"Colorful would be one way of putting it." He thought, with a pang, of how his connection to the Song had all but died after the breakup with Sören, and just being in proximity to him, it had started to come back again. "It was at its most colorful, in the sense of vibrant, when Sören and I were together."  
  
Dooku waited, and Maglor went on. "Sören and I... our bond wasn't just physical, wasn't just emotional. There was a real  _connection_  he and I had, I suppose you could call it on a spiritual level. We created together - I would compose music, he would paint. Hours at a time, sometimes going a couple of days, setting up a little nest in the living room so we could at least stay properly hydrated and nourished in our mutual fever. We synced up... it was like a symbiotic relationship. In the latter half of our years together, we had occasional shows where his work would be displayed and I'd perform while he painted, live, with the painting going to the highest bidder. Those were amazing experiences that  _fed_  both of us. And it wasn't simply that we seemed to be attuned to the same cycle of when our muse would strike, and one would play into the other... Sören and I seemed to inhabit the same creative sphere, itself." Maglor couldn't believe he was going this much into detail. "Sören and I... both have synaesthesia. Synaesthesia isn't terribly uncommon among creative people, but if you put twenty synaesthetes in a room you'll usually get twenty different responses as to associations with color, sound, and so on. Meanwhile Sören and I... had the same exact responses. And I don't mean that we played question-and-answer games and said 'yeah me too' for the sake of going along, I mean that I would play things and he would paint  _what I was seeing in my head when I was playing_."  
  
Dooku's jaw dropped a little. He broadcasted,  _The Force. You have a Force bond._  Maglor had no idea what that even meant, but it made him wonder if Dooku was himself not usual in the way Sören was not usual.  
  
When Vanimórë had gone on about it, he'd wondered, and, at last he'd seen something - earlier in the week, after Auli had run off, he'd been sitting in Sören's jeep outside the farms, waiting, rocking himself and humming to try to calm down, and then he'd felt  _power_. He opened his eyes and in the distance - he had sight superior to a human's - he saw Auli rising up off the ground, floating into Sören's arms. He had not said anything to Sören about it, and was still holding onto that hand to play later if at all, but it was apparent that Sören had hid that from him for close to five years - and Maglor couldn't even be angry that he did. He of all people understood the need to hide the truth of what one was, it was how he'd stayed alive this long, when Men would have burned him, experimented on him. Even in these so-called "progressive" times Men very much feared what they did not understand, and Sören had a hard enough time in society pretending to be normal - revealing his power would sentence him to a fate worse than death, Maglor was sure of that.  
  
There were a few moments of silence, as Dooku processed all of what Maglor had just said, and Maglor almost wished he hadn't said any of it. He once again thought about another shot of Brennivín, and once again his gut told him that was a bad idea, he'd already had too much if he was going on like this.  
  
Dooku finally said, "You told me last week you'd play for me, you know."  
  
"I did." Maglor ran a nervous hand through his hair. He got up, and had to steady himself on the arm of the couch when he did. He  _definitely_  had too much to drink. Dooku noticed and also got up.  
  
"Do you need some help?"  
  
He did. Maglor leaned on Dooku, and with an arm around him, Dooku walked Maglor to the bedroom. Maglor's face burned all the way there - it would have looked bad to an outside observer, and indeed there was a part of him that wanted to make that a reality.  
  
Vanimórë had Vigdís and Páll's bedroom, with the king-sized bed  _when he wasn't in the hotel_ , Maglor thought bitterly, seeing Sören in the throes of passion in his mind's eye,  _hearing him_.. Their children each had a separate room, and they had a fourth bedroom for guests, though it was small, with and this was the room Maglor was in, with a queen-sized bed just large enough for two people. Maglor's guitar sat in one corner of the room, a large electronic piano set up in the other corner. In a case under the bed, he had a harp, but he had not played harp in some time, indeed he'd never mentioned the harp to Sören, making the painting of him as a harpist that much more remarkable.  
  
"Do you want to hear me play guitar or piano?" Maglor asked.  
  
"Whichever you'd rather play," Dooku said.  
  
Maglor thought for a moment, and then he pulled the piano towards the bed. He would have tried to carry it out into the living room for better acoustics, but he was too drunk to safely attempt that.  
  
He was drunk enough to play the  _Noldolantë_. He did not sing it - he was drunk but not  _that_  drunk to risk singing in his native tongue around Dooku... though he had, a few times, sang it for Sören, who had correctly figured out it wasn't Spanish or Portuguese (unlike the name Maitimo, which would have been hilarious if it were not so tragic), but Sören had assumed he was "doing the Liz Fraser thing" and singing glossolalia a la Cocteau Twins, and he wasn't going to correct that assumption at the time.  
  
But the instrumental... here he was, with Dooku sitting beside him on the bed, and he was performing the  _Noldolantë_  for the first mortal besides Sören. He'd of course played other compositions of his to mortals - he was nothing if not a prolific, and somewhat obsessive, composer, though the Music had been quiet for the last five years until recently and he'd suffered for it. The  _Noldolantë_ , even without words, was too  _personal_  to play for others. He'd told the professor of the song's existence, in the two times he'd visited him, but not even the professor himself had gotten to hear it.  
  
And he was playing it for Dooku now.  _In vino, veritas._  Letting down his guard as he had only done with one other, in too long. Even without words, only the instrumental, every note of the  _Noldolantë_ , every cycle of the song, still expressed the Fall of the Noldor, his father's glory, the Valar's resentment, the rebellion, the kinslaying, the exile. And then, the deeper exile - Maglor had added to the song off and on over the ages, wandering the Earth, alone, the last of his family, keeping their memories alive in his spirit, as he himself was less and less alive every day, just  _existing_.  
  
When he was done, Dooku had tears in his eyes. As much as he disliked doing this uninvited, he found himself reaching in, and saw Dooku was in fact seeing it - the fog, the barren landscape of his inner life, the feeling of utter  _desolation and solitude_ , and still marching on, though there was no longer any hope of coming out of the fog, out of the wasteland.  
  
Their eyes met. Maglor withdrew from Dooku's mind, hoping Dooku didn't sense him there for that brief instant, just looking to see if it had done what it'd done for Sören.  
  
"That was..." Dooku struggled to find words. "Powerful."  
  
"I'll accept powerful." Maglor nodded.  
  
"Beautiful, but haunting. Melancholy."  
  
"That was what I'd intended, with the piece."  
  
Dooku closed his eyes again, and Maglor could feel he was drawn back there, and he felt Dooku hurting for  _him_  -  _whatever grief had caused all of that_.  
  
"Um..." Maglor didn't want to leave him hanging on that. "Would you like to hear something else?"  
  
"Please."  
  
Maglor got his guitar this time and played him three other original compositions - two of the songs were from when he had first adopted the Alejandro Magalhães identity, a comparatively recent acquisition in his lengthy list of aliases, and they were in Portuguese, which to Maglor was the most beautiful language of Men next to Icelandic. One of the songs was in English, and was a love ballad that he had, in fact, written for Sören, and Dooku seemed to recognize that it was, smiling a little,  _yes I feel that for him too_ , Dooku broadcasted.  
  
"I will also sometimes do covers," Maglor said, "if there's anything in particular you'd like to hear."  
  
Dooku was a little drunk, though less drunk than he was, and Maglor sensed he was still haunted enough by the  _Noldolantë_  to not be able to make much of a decision. "I can't think of anything, but I imagine whatever you pick out would be fine. Er, better than fine."  
  
Maglor considered for a few minutes, and, while he was still having the surge of nostalgia and pining for Sören, he found himself playing "Song to the Siren".  
  
_On the floating, shapeless oceans  
I did all my best to smile  
'Til your singing eyes and fingers  
Drew me loving into your eyes  
  
And you sang, "Sail to me, sail to me let me enfold you"  
Here I am, here I am waiting to hold you  
  
Did I dream you dreamed about me?  
Were you here when I was full sail?  
Now my foolish boat is leaning  
Broken love lost on your rocks  
  
For you sang, "Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow"  
Oh my heart, oh my heart shies from the sorrow  
  
Well I'm as puzzled as a newborn child  
I'm as riddled as the tide  
Should I stand amid the breakers?  
Or should I lie with death my bride?  
  
Hear me sing, "Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you"  
Here I am, here I am, waiting to hold you_  
  
Dooku's eyes were misted up again, and so were Maglor's. At last Dooku said, "That was exquisite, thank you."  
  
"Thank  _you._ "  
  
Maglor put his guitar away, and the alcohol was  _really_  getting to him now. Dooku got up and helped him walk to the bed. There was a flat-screen TV on top of the dresser across from the bed, and now was a good time to chase away all the emotions, before the alcohol made him go on a crying jag, which had the potential to get really weird. "More  _Metalocalypse_?"  
  
Dooku sat next to Maglor on the bed, and Auli hopped up on the bed, cuddling between them. Maglor started to relax - if anything it was  _too_  comfortable, and after a few laughs, he relaxed enough that he felt himself drifting in and out, dozing off a bit.  _No. Stay awake..._  
  
_  
  
Alejandro had not only fallen asleep, but fell asleep leaning on his shoulder.  
  
They were halfway through an episode of  _Metalocalypse_ , and Dooku decided to keep watching it till the end before he would take his leave, going back to the cabin for the night. But his attention kept turning back to Alejandro, who looked beautiful asleep, almost too lovely to be human, not unlike Sören's own beauty. Indeed, the two of them curled up together, asleep, must have been a breathtaking sight - Dooku's own breath caught, imagining it.  
  
_You're looking at him the way you look at Sören? What are you, in love with him?_  
  
The shock came like a knife to the heart. It was one thing to have fallen in love with Sören, and their relationship to endure, even through Dooku's ongoing fear of his impending mortality and how it would affect Sören both in the dying and once he was gone. It was another thing entirely to have feelings for a second person as well, and inflict all of that on  _them_ , without it being his husband's ex.  
  
_This is a clusterfuck._  
  
But it was a beautiful clusterfuck. Alejandro was ethereal, sleeping there, and he couldn't deny that feeling the warmth and weight of him close was comforting, felt  _right_  even as wrong as it was. And Alejandro wasn't just lovely to look at, but he was realizing he had the same pull to Alejandro's music that he had to Sören's art. Dooku remembered what Alejandro had said about his bond with Sören, the synaesthesia, the same wavelength they were on, and nodded to himself. It was as if they were made of the same soul-stuff, two sides of the same coin, two halves of a greater cosmic whole, and to love one was to love the other...  
  
He resisted the urge to pet Alejandro's hair, glorious that it was...  
  
Dooku sighed.  
  
The show ended, and Dooku got up, reluctantly. But first, he needed to see to Alejandro's comfort. He gently rolled Alejandro onto his pile of pillows, drew back the covers, and tucked him in. And then he just sat there for a moment, not able to stop looking at the picture of the beautiful man tucked in, looking almost innocent curled up under the covers, though he knew perfectly damn well Alejandro was  _not_  innocent, if he'd shared passion with someone like Sören... the thought of Alejandro and Sören making love together, writhing,  _burning_ , made him harden, just a little.  
  
There would be no acting on his desire; there would be no speaking of his desire. The situation between Alejandro and Sören was already volatile enough.  
  
Yet, Dooku's hand strayed, in its urge to touch Alejandro's hair, to tenderly smooth it, an affectionate gesture, the need to comfort him in that place of sleep, probably the only peace the melancholy singer had most days. And when he pet Alejandro's hair, Alejandro stirred a little - not opening his eyes - and mumbled, "...Where you going?"  
  
"I have to go home now."  
  
"No, Uncle... stay..."  
  
Another knife to the heart.  _Uncle. Yes, of course._  Even if the situation between Sören and Alejandro was not as volatile, why would Alejandro desire him, in turn? He was significantly older - Alejandro was in his early forties, and he was almost seventy-one. As much as Sören found him a "silver fox" and made him feel like a sex god, he was keenly aware that to most of society he was well past his prime, most people found the mere concept of seniors having sex lives to be repulsive. Of course Alejandro would, in this state, confuse Dooku for his uncle - that was all he could expect.  _I'm too old._  
  
Dooku got up, and quietly walked out of the bedroom, petting Auli on his way out of the cottage.  
  
Walking back to his cabin, alone, feeling like he was made of lead with every step, his heart in the pit of his stomach.   
  
_I'm an idiot. An old, foolish idiot._


	25. Broken

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note: the warning on this has now changed from "No Archive Warnings Apply" to "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" specifically because of _this_ chapter. Tw/cw for violence as well as references to abuse, rape, and non-consensual BDSM practices.

**Broken**

 

 _Monday_  
  
After classes at the studio, on the drive back, Sören surprised himself by asking Alejandro, "Would you like to have dinner with us tonight?"  
  
Dooku was surprised when Sören brought Alejandro into the cabin, but took it in stride. He and Alejandro set off to the store to pick up ingredients for a dinner for three, and came back with the makings for  _paella_. Sören's face lit up when he saw them unloading the groceries in the kitchen, as  _paella_  the way Alejandro made it had been his very favorite dish - he'd tried replicating it a few times after their breakup and did a decent job of it, though the time he made it for Justin, he'd gotten the response "you're not much of a cook"; there was still nothing like the way Alejandro made it, as if there was some sort of magic that went into it.  
  
Sören sat on the couch and played Stardew Valley while Dooku and Alejandro worked together in the kitchen, though he was getting the urge to draw or paint. When the  _paella_  simmered on the stove, Dooku said, "I think we have time for an episode of  _Metalocalypse_."  
  
Sören grinned. "You showed him  _Metalocalypse_?"  
  
Dooku grinned back. "I did."  
  
Sören turned to Alejandro. "What did you think of it?"  
  
Alejandro's reaction was deadpan. "Brutal."  
  
Sören's laughter rang out. He smiled fondly as Dooku sat on one side of him, Alejandro on the other, and Snúdur on his lap. It had been awhile since Sören and Dooku had watched it - not since before Van and Alejandro showed up in Svalbarðseyri - and it was nice to do something from the time before life had been so disrupted; bringing Alejandro into it felt like the wound was closing, a little. They were, in fact, watching the episode from the first season of  _Metalocalypse_  where Dethklok began seeing a therapist after attacking each other onstage during a show. Even though Sören had seen the episode a few times already, he still laughed until he snorted at the therapist being named "John Twinkletits", which made Dooku laugh aloud, and Alejandro as well. When Sören calmed down a little, he looked over at Alejandro, who gave him a little smile and said softly, "I've missed that."  
  
Sören's heart ached.  _I missed you, too._  
  
When dinner was ready they ate outside, drinking wine, and then after dinner Sören did the dishes while Dooku and Alejandro played a round of cards, and when the dishes were done the three decided to watch some more  _Metalocalypse_. They binge-watched the eighth through thirteenth episodes of the show, and as Sören sat there on the couch between Dooku and Alejandro, Snúdur purring away as he got pettings from three different hands, Sören couldn't help thinking how nice it felt, how Alejandro being there wasn't an intrusion at all but it felt like he belonged there, with them.  
  
Sören didn't like that train of thought, or the increasing urge he was having to lean against Alejandro, so when after the thirteenth episode Alejandro checked the time and said, "I had better go back and see to Auli," Sören was relieved even as he was finding himself a bit sad to see Alejandro go.  
  
Alejandro turned to Dooku. "Would you like to come with me for the usual walk?"  
  
Dooku hesitated for a moment, instead of saying "yes" right away, which Sören found curious, but then he nodded.  
  
Alejandro waved to Sören. "It's been a pleasure."  
  
Sören threw the horns. "It was brutal."  
  
"Yes." Alejandro grinned. "I'll see you tomorrow, Sören."  
  
Sören waved, and gave a little sigh when Dooku and Alejandro walked out.  
  
He returned to Stardew Valley, and was nursing another glass of wine when Dooku came back from the walk. Dooku smiled at him, and Sören smiled back, and Dooku made a beeline for the bathroom. He was in there for awhile, to the point where Sören wondered about calling out if he was OK, and then Dooku came out, looking a little sheepish.  
  
"You all right?" Sören asked as Dooku sat down.  
  
Dooku nodded. "I'm fine." He sipped from a bottle of water, looking off to the side, out the window.  
  
A few minutes passed, where Sören continued to play his game and Dooku was typing away on his laptop, and at last Dooku sat back with a little huff, and Sören glanced over at him. Dooku had a stern look on his face, more than his usual default expression, and Sören raised an eyebrow. "Hm?"  
  
"I was just thinking..." Dooku met his eyes. "You realize, Sören, it's July fifteenth."  
  
"...And?"  
  
"Vigdís and Páll are coming back on the sixteenth of August."  
  
"Oh." That was a month away.  
  
Dooku nodded. "The last month that Van and Alejandro have been here, has already flown by. And... well... Alejandro came here for closure, and that isn't going to be immediate. The two of you should spend some time together."  
  
"We already see each other at the studio."  
  
"That isn't quite the same thing as being alone with him outside the studio, having some time to talk."  
  
Sören sighed loudly and ran a nervous hand through his curls. "Jæja, but I'm not really ready to... discuss... the breakup, and what happened and why, and all of that."  
  
"Nor am I suggesting you do so immediately. I understand that conversation needs to be worked up to, and what I'm suggesting is that you start working up to it."  
  
"So... you want me to spend the next few evenings hanging out with Alejandro...?"  
  
"Yes." Dooku nodded. "I'll be here, working on this wretched, bloody novel."  
  
Sören couldn't help laughing. "That bad, huh?"  
  
"I've hit one of those moments in the plot where it's emotionally difficult." Dooku frowned. "And it will be easier for me to navigate and get everything out if I minimize distractions."  
  
Sören grinned. "Are you saying I'm distracting?"  
  
"Quite." Dooku nodded. He smirked. "You sitting over there being so... attractive. It's hard to concentrate."  
  
Sören got up, and walked over to Dooku, not able to resist. "Maybe if you let yourself indulge in a little distraction, you might be better able to concentrate afterwards, já?" With that, he took Dooku's hands, pulling him up from his chair at the desk, and began walking Dooku back towards the bed. Dooku laughed softly, his laughter becoming a moan when Sören kissed him hard, and slipped his hands away to run them over Dooku's chest, sliding down to rub the hardening bulge in his khakis. With a little growl, Dooku pushed Sören onto the bed, and Sören gave a naughty grin as he pulled his shirt off, erupting into giggles as Dooku pounced on him like a cat.  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Tuesday_  
  
Sören climbed into Alejandro's Jaguar and mumbled a thanks as Alejandro pushed a thermos of iced coffee at him; as long as Sören had been running his studio he still couldn't quite get the hang of mornings, and would have had afternoon and evening classes only if it didn't mean losing business from the students who could only do mornings.  
  
After a few sips of his coffee, Sören looked at Alejandro, who was focused on the road, and he said, "Nico thinks that you and I should spend some time just us the next few nights, to... catch up. Continue to get to know each other again, so that way we can get comfortable enough to eventually talk about what happened."  
  
There was a moment of silence - a long enough pause that it made Sören worry, and then Alejandro simply nodded. "All right."  
  
"So maybe after our classes today, you and Nico can go for your usual walk, and then you and I can have dinner and, hang out, or whatever."  
  
"We can do that." Alejandro kept his tone and expression neutral, not registering any kind of emotional reaction.  
  
Alejandro had his piano class, and Sören had watercolors. As much as he'd been feeling the itch to draw or paint last night, he found himself restless, not quite able to concentrate - which happened sometimes - feeling a vague sort of anxiety. He chalked it up to the prospect of spending time alone with Alejandro later, but it wasn't quite that. He paced around the room, looking at the students' work, giving his usual feedback and encouragement, and after each round he stepped in the doorway and looked across the hall at Alejandro and his class. When Alejandro cringed at the wrong note being hit, Sören couldn't help grin at the face he made, and when Alejandro saw and glared, Sören wrinkled his nose and stuck out his tongue. The second time it happened, a little while later, Sören stuck his tongue out at Alejandro again, and Alejandro responded by giving him the finger. Feeling impish, Sören went to his sheet of paper towels, ripped one off, crumpled it into a ball, and when Alejandro had his back turned to the door of the classroom, giving instructions, waving a conductor's baton, Sören threw the paper towel ball at the back of his head.  
  
The look Alejandro gave him was priceless, and Sören cackled on his way back into the classroom.  
  
Just before Sören's watercolors class ended, as Sören had his own back turned to the door, he felt a wadded-up ball hit the small of his back, and then another one, and another. He turned around and one by one, Alejandro's students were bombarding him with paper projectiles. Alejandro leaned against the wall, grinning.  
  
"You're gonna get it later," Sören threatened him.  
  
"You started it."  
  
"I may have started it, but this is some next level shit." Sören gave him a mock scowl and wagged his finger. "I should give you a time out."  
  
"What are you, my father?"  
  
Sören threw one of the paper balls at his head before ducking back into his classroom.  
  
His students left shortly thereafter, or rather, they all did except Símon. Sören wasn't entirely surprised by this - their conversation had been cut short last week before Sören could refuse his offer of dinner, and Sören  _had_ said they could talk about it another time. So Símon lingered, though Sören continued to put the art supplies away to prepare for the next class, hoping that looking busy would send a hint that he wasn't interested, without having to say anything.  
  
Of course that hint wasn't strong enough and finally Símon approached, standing a couple feet away, watching as Sören stacked paint boxes into a bin. "Hej," he said.  
  
"Hej." Sören didn't look at him.  
  
"Jæja..." Símon cleared his throat. "About the question I asked you last week... would you like to have dinner with me tonight?"  
  
"No."  
  
"I see. I know that's short notice, so perhaps another time? Friday?"  
  
"No, Símon." Sören stopped what he was doing, looked up, and leaned on the edge of the craft table where he'd been gathering supplies. He took a deep breath. "Look, don't take this the wrong way, but I'm not interested."  
  
"But you're in an open relationship, já?"  
  
_I cannot fucking believe you._  Sören rolled his eyes. "Open relationship does not mean open to  _everybody._  I'm not interested in you, I'm sorry, that's just how it is."  
  
Sören turned his back, to load more paint boxes into the bin, and begin collecting brushes to be cleaned. Símon took a couple steps forward and said, "So what is it that your old man and that guy with the Bentley who was at the solstice party have that I don't? Money? That's the only reason why you'd want to marry some dried-up old man, isn't it?"  
  
Sören turned around and glared, his heart hammering in his ears. "You know... that's  _quite_  a statement.  _How dare you._ "  
  
Símon sneered. "I see that Jaguar out there, and the way you're flirting with Alejandro across the hall." He came closer. "Do you think I don't have money, I'm not rich enough for you? I can take you anywhere you want, buy you anything you want." And then he was in Sören's face; Sören felt himself freeze like a deer trapped in headlights. Símon was a few inches taller than him, like Justin had been, same build, same sandy hair, blue eyes. Símon's cologne was almost overpowering in the close space and Sören's mouth went dry.  
  
Símon went on, his voice low as if he were attempting to sound seductive. "But even more than money, I could show you a real good time. And  _I know you want it_. Open relationship? Your kind  _always_  wants it. You're just playing hard to get." He reached out to cup Sören's chin, giving it a caress that made Sören's skin crawl, and pressed his hard-on against Sören's thigh. His hand reached downward, about to grab Sören's crotch -  
  
\- Without thinking about it, realizing what he was doing, just  _feeling_ , Sören grabbed Símon's middle finger and yanked it as hard as he could, letting out a shout of " _Vaddírassgat!_ "  
  
Símon screamed as Sören felt and heard the crunch, and then after reeling back a couple of steps, Símon hollered, "You filthy little slut!" and took a swing.   
  
Sören caught the fist with his hands, and with his steel-toed Doc Martens boot, he kicked Símon in the shin, then in the balls. When Símon fell over, Sören grabbed a steel folding chair from the art table.  
  
Alejandro rushed in, just in time to see Símon get a berserker rush and lean up before Sören could bring the chair down on him, grabbing Sören's legs, toppling him. From the floor, Sören watched as Alejandro picked Símon up off the ground like he weighed nothing,  _slammed_  him into the wall, and then punched him in the gut and in the face, making Símon's nose bleed. There was a wild look in Alejandro's eyes that Sören found thrilling and terrifying all at once. Breathing hard, Alejandro took a step back. Símon was blubbering now.  
  
Alejandro wasn't done. He grabbed the steel folding chair that Sören almost used as a weapon. With a sob, Símon ran out of the studio, and Sören and Alejandro both cringed as they heard Símon vomit outside from the wracking pain.  
  
Alejandro was about to storm out - Sören could feel the rage, and a sense that Alejandro was going to go back for more, possibly even finish him - and he did something he normally didn't do, didn't like doing, but he shoved into Alejandro's mind with the Force as he commanded, " _No._  Let him go."  
  
Alejandro stopped, and blinked slowly. There was a feeling in Sören's head of  _pushing back_ , which all but confirmed to him Alejandro was Force sensitive whether he knew it or not - and those kinds of suggestions normally didn't work on those who were, as Dooku had told him almost two years ago. But nonetheless, he did wait, and after Sören took a moment to catch his breath, he explained, "I don't need a situation with the police."  
  
Alejandro came over to Sören, who was still lying on the foor, and reached out. Sören took his hands and Alejandro pulled him up. For a moment they just looked at each other, and then Sören reflexively brushed himself off. Alejandro pulled out a chair for Sören, who sat, and Alejandro came across the other side of the table to sit down. After hell breaking loose moments ago, it was now silent enough to hear a pin drop in the room. He didn't look at Sören, and Sören got up from the floor, slowly, reflexively dusted himself off, and sat down at the table across from him.  
  
Finally Alejandro looked up, and at Sören. His eyes were still wild, and Sören felt a frisson down his spine. Sören also did a double-take - for a very brief instant he seemed to hallucinate that Alejandro's hair was much longer than it actually was, below his waist rather than the middle of his back, and he seemed to glow. Sören blinked and Alejandro's appearance returned to normal.  _I must really be in a bad way, if I'm seeing shit._    
"Are you all right? Did he...?"  
  
"I'm fine." Sören was not, in fact, fine. He felt sick to his stomach, having flashbacks of the day things were finally well and truly over between he and Justin, right down to the folding steel chair. "He didn't get  _too_  far."  
  
Sören's hands were shaking. Alejandro quietly got up, headed to the mini-fridge, and came back with a ginger ale for Sören, who said " _Takk_ " as he accepted it and opened the can, drinking to try to ground himself.  
  
"I can help you clean up the room before your class starts," Alejandro said. He took a deep breath. "I hope he doesn't go to the police -"  
  
"I think he's not daft enough to do that, considering I'd just tell the police he was about to force himself on me and it would be two words against his." Sören closed his eyes and shuddered, feeling that nauseated feeling again, and gulped down the ginger ale.  
  
"He better not come back here."  
  
"I don't think he will." But Sören wasn't so sure of that, remembering how Justin had stalked him, coming around weeks after Sören had first tried to break up with him for good, until that last day.  
  
Alejandro helped Sören clean up the art room - they washed brushes together in the sink as their last task, and then Alejandro reached out to rub and pat Sören's shoulder. "You hungry? You want to go get lunch?"  
  
Sören shook his head.  
  
"OK. Well, I won't push it, but we'll have an early dinner then."  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
Sören's second class of the day was the children's class, and he managed to put on a brave face for the kids, not wanting to alert them that anything had gone awry earlier that day. Nonetheless, throughout the class he worried that Símon might come back and there would be some sort of incident in front of the children, traumatizing them.  _Stay away stay away stay away_ , Sören kept repeating in his head, like a spell.  
  
After the class was over, Alejandro took Sören back to the cabin. They didn't speak on the way there - Alejandro kept looking at him, as if to check on him; Sören looked out the window, trying to calm himself by admiring the lush green hills and fields of the northern Icelandic countryside.  
  
When they got to the cabin, Sören sat for a few minutes as Dooku waited for Alejandro to go back, get ready, and get Auli. Dooku noticed right away something was wrong.  
  
"I felt a disturbance in the Force earlier and I thought about calling your cell." Dooku's eyes narrowed.  
  
"Jæja, there was... an incident." Sören took a deep breath, not wanting to have this conversation right now, but his husband's barrister instincts and protector instincts were out in full force.  
  
" _What kind of incident._ " The words were almost a growl. Dooku gave Sören a suspicious look. "Remember what I told you about the potential for this Van character to have dangerous enemies -"  
  
"It wasn't that. Jesus Christ, Nico." Sören was a little annoyed, even though he knew Dooku meant well. "One of my students decided to get fresh. He didn't like hearing no for an answer."  
  
Dooku looked ready to kill. "Did he -"  
  
"He didn't get that far. Alejandro and I dealt with him." Sören had another flashback of the last time he saw Justin, and of the stalking in the weeks prior, the fight that led to the entire thing of wanting to be done once and for all. "If it's all the same to you, I  _do not_  want to talk about this right now. I just want to relax."  
  
Dooku let out a sharp exhale. "Very well." A raised eyebrow. "Are you sure you're OK?"  
  
Sören gave a thin smile. "I'm fine." He wasn't, but he really just wanted to let it go and try to get out of the mental space he was in.  
  
When Alejandro came with Auli, Sören logged into Stardew Valley, trying to zone out for a little while. Then he got a poke from the chat server, and it was Dagnýr.  
  
**[5:02 PM] Dagnýr:**  Hey.  
  
**[5:03 PM] Sören:**  hej yourself. what's up  
  
**[5:04 PM] Dagnýr:**  I'm asking that of you.  _What happened._  
  
Sören made a noise and facepalmed. On the one hand, he couldn't be surprised that his twin brother had felt something, even across the Atlantic Ocean. On the other hand he was still surprised at how connected they were despite the miles, how they could feel each other at times, and he was annoyed with himself for broadcasting so loudly.  
  
**[5:07 PM] Sören:**  ah, one of my students was a creepy arsehole. he was dealt with  
  
**[5:09 PM] Dagnýr:**  Was he, like, sexually harassing you?  
  
**[5:11 PM] Sören:**  yes  
  
**[5:12 PM] Dagnýr:**  :knife:  
  
**[5:12 PM] Dagnýr:**  Do I need to fly out there and fuck him up?  
  
**[5:13 PM] Sören:**  I think you'd have to get in line behind Alejandro  
  
**[5:13 PM] Sören:**  he was there for the tail end of it and he, um  
  
**[5:14 PM] Sören:**  got a bit rough  
  
**[5:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  Good.  
  
**[5:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  Also... Alejandro? Nani?  
  
**[5:16 PM] Sören:**  he's teaching music classes at the studio  
  
**[5:16 PM] Sören:**  and we're, like, trying to be friends or smth  
  
**[5:17 PM] Sören:**  he and Nico really hit it off, too  
  
**[5:18 PM] Dagnýr:**  Huh.  
  
**[5:18 PM] Dagnýr:**  Well, I hope that all works out.  
  
**[5:19 PM] Dagnýr:**  Are you  _sure_  you're all right?  
  
**[5:21 PM] Sören:**  for fuck's sake,  _could you all bloody stop asking me that?_  
  
**[5:26 PM] Dagnýr:**  Sheesh. Excuse me for giving a shit about you.  
  
**[5:29 PM] Sören:**  ah shit, I'm sorry  
  
But Dagnýr had already gone offline, or invisible. Sören leaned back on the couch and buried his face in his hands, feeling ready to cry.  _I cannot have a meltdown right now. They'll be back soon._  
  
Once Dooku and Alejandro returned, Alejandro waited outside with Auli, and Sören got up to give Dooku a quick hug and a kiss. Then Dooku took a moment to stroke Sören's face, his dark eyes full of compassion and concern. Sören felt himself welling up again, and he patted Dooku on the back on his way out. "I'll see you later," he said.  
  
He and Alejandro walked up the street for a couple minutes in silence, then Sören asked, "Is Van -?"  
  
Alejandro shook his head, somehow knowing what Sören was asking. "I told him we needed some time, and he said he understands, so he'll be back much later."  
  
At the cottage, Alejandro had Sören sit down in the living room. "Can I get you anything?"  
  
"Water's fine."  
  
Auli also drank, and then Alejandro came in with Sören's water. "Do you have any preferences for dinner?"  
  
"Um." Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "I hadn't really thought about it."  
  
"Right. I... hadn't expected company, but I'll figure something out."  
  
After rummaging around in the kitchen, Alejandro came back out and said, "OK, you want to come with me to the store?"  
  
The entire way there, Sören was hoping he wouldn't run into Símon in town, and being angry with himself for being afraid of him.  _It's not like you can avoid going into town forever, either._  Símon was just a summer visitor, going back to Reykjavik in the fall, but that would still be a month away. Sören was ill at ease in the supermarket, and it showed; Alejandro kept giving him concerned looks and Sören wanted to run and hide.  
  
They decided on something easy, fish fillets with potatoes and a salad. While Alejandro worked in the kitchen he had music on - Sören was not surprised it was Depeche Mode and The Cure, which seemed to match his own internal state. When dinner was ready they ate together in companionable silence.  
  
"I'll do the dishes," Sören offered.  
  
"No. You're a guest."  
  
"And you cooked. Let me do something useful."  
  
Alejandro reluctantly let Sören wash the dishes, and Sören continued to try to ground himself with the running water and the soap bubbles. Alejandro came in when the dishes were almost done. "Do you have anything in mind for what you want to do now?" He leaned against the kitchen entryway.  
  
"I want to relax, after the day I've had, so... maybe some  _Metalocalypse_? I could use a good laugh."  
  
They sat on the couch together, with Auli between them, and watched the next six episodes of  _Metalocalypse_ , finishing the first season. Halfway through, Alejandro got up and poured them each a shot of whiskey; he took his neat and put ice in Sören's. Sören managed a smile at that, pleasantly surprised Alejandro remembered those little details.  
  
The antics of Dethklok, and having Auli snuggled up with them like he didn't have a care in the world, and the strong, silent presence of Alejandro managed to get Sören's mind off the unpleasant events of the day. By the time they'd finished watching the first season, Sören felt a little sleepy, even though it was still somewhat early and Sören was usually a night owl. Alejandro walked him home.  
  
At the doorstep, they lingered, and for a moment Sören thought Alejandro was going to hug him, but Alejandro held back. "I'll see you tomorrow," Sören said, finally.  
  
"Yes. Have a good rest of the evening, Sören."  
  
A long glance, and then Alejandro was off, taking one last look over his shoulder. Sören watched him down the street for a minute, admiring the proud, graceful walk, the way his hair stirred slightly in the breeze,  _that magnificent arse_.  
  
_OK, could you not notice that right now._  
  
Sören's mind wandered to having seen it out of pants, and indeed, what the rest of Alejandro looked like naked. For a brief instant he entertained the fantasy of that wild look in Alejandro's eyes, the danger in him, the way Alejandro had sometimes been less-than-gentle with his full consent and enthusiasm, pounding him into the mattress, like being eaten alive.  
  
_Fuck._  
  
Despite his moment of lust, Sören was still feeling tired, and after taking a shower, he went to bed. He was vaguely aware of Dooku climbing in beside him at some point and holding him, and he heard himself murmur " _Ñolo_ ," meaning to say "Nico," but it didn't feel wrong, either.  
  
_  
  
  
_Wednesday_  
  
The day dragged, and Sören knew he was not his usual self. When it was time to go back, Sören breathed a sigh of relief.  
  
"I was thinking we could go somewhere tonight, if you want to?" Alejandro asked. "Change of pace..."  
  
Sören nodded. "That sounds fine."  
  
They ate at Serrano, which Sören found himself amused and disturbed by all at once as it had been the place he and Dooku went to the night they fully consummated their relationship and had the feeling of being "their place". But Sören didn't really mind, the food was good, and being out in public like that had a much-needed feeling of normalcy, like Símon didn't own him.  
  
After they ate, Alejandro asked, "Do you want to go for a ride?"  
  
"...Yes." And then Sören said, on impulse, "Can we stop at our respective places first so I can get my sketchbook and you get your guitar?"  
  
They ended up driving to the Goðafoss. For awhile they just walked around, looking at the falls from different angles, watching in quiet awe of the beauty and power of nature. Then Sören reached into his pocket and produced two coins, each 1  _krónur_.  
  
"In 2006, when I was twenty-two, my sister and I stopped here on our way out of Akureyri, moving down to Reykjavik," Sören said, "and we each threw a coin in here for good luck in the city, even though it's superstitious and kind of silly. Then when I came back to Akureyri twelve years later, I threw a coin in. So... here. It feels like we should do this to mark some kind of... turning point in our lives." He handed one of the coins to Alejandro. Then Sören threw his into the falls, watching it splash and disappear.  
  
Alejandro hesitated, and Sören made the "go on" gesture. "What are you waiting for?"  
  
A rueful little smile, and Alejandro said, looking at the crashing waters, "The last time I threw an object into a living body of water, my life didn't turn out so well."  
  
"Well, that was then, this is now. Time to make some new luck, já?"  
  
Alejandro looked back at Sören, raised an eyebrow, and then he took the coin and pitched it into the falls.  
  
Sören clapped his hands like a little kid who was proud of one of his peers for something, and then felt self-conscious about it, but Alejandro just grinned and reached out with his bad hand to pat Sören. Sören took his hand and affectionately traced the scarring on his palm, not able to help it, giving a little squeeze; he restrained the urge to kiss his hand.  
  
Alejandro retrieved his guitar from the Jaguar, and Sören got out his sketchbook and oil pastels. They sat together in the grass, and it wasn't long before Alejandro began playing, and Sören started sketching.  
  
It was like old times again. Right down to Sören seeing images clearly - this time, Alejandro on a craggy shore, throwing something into the sea. Stormy sea waves, under a fierce, blood-red sunset sky. Something glinting in the waves, diamond-bright. Alejandro dressed in grey, a hood covering his hair, looking mournful.  
  
The song was haunting, all minor chords, and Alejandro was singing in a language that wasn't Spanish or Portuguese - it was like the way Liz Fraser of Cocteau Twins sang nonsense but somehow managed to emote so powerfully with non-words, more than she could with actual real words. He'd done that a few times around Sören, not often, and the times he'd done it gave Sören chills, brought him to tears. This was no different. Sören could feel the overwhelming sense of loneliness from him,  _existential despair_...  
  
...and the grief. What he'd had with Sören, what he'd lost. Feeling the hope that Alejandro had briefly dared to have, years ago, and was shocked back out of it, then traumatized by the loss of it, like having that feeling of belonging and home for a little while and losing it was worse than never finding it at all.  
  
When Alejandro stopped playing - he had been watching the waterfall, and it felt like his mind was further away - he looked at the oil pastel work that Sören had produced, and his jaw dropped a little. "My God," he finally choked out.  
  
"I know you don't like having pictures of yourself taken and I assume that means drawn too but I -" Sören's voice trailed off, because of the shocked look on Alejandro's face. His eyes were wide almost as if he was afraid.  
  
There were a few moments of awkward silence; the roar of the Goðafoss was almost deafening. At last Alejandro said, his voice almost a hush, "We should go now."  
  
Alejandro put on The Cure on the way back - the  _Disintegration_  album, which Sören  _knew_  was deliberate; he had attempted to listen to it in the first couple of years following their breakup and it seemed almost every song on that album was about them and what had happened.  
  
_But I never said I would stay to the end  
So I leave you with babies and hoping for frequency  
Screaming like this in the hope of the secrecy  
Screaming me over and over and over  
I leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery  
Stains on the carpet and stains on the scenery  
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams  
When we both of us knew how the ending would be  
  
So it's all come back round to breaking apart again  
Breaking apart like I'm made up of glass again  
Making it up behind my back again  
Holding my breath for the fear of sleep again  
Holding it up behind my head again  
Cut in the deep to the heart of the bone again  
Round and round and round and it's coming apart again  
Over and over and over_  
  
Sören's hands were shaking, a little, and when he found his voice, it shook too. "About the drawing. I didn't mean to upset you -"  
  
"You." Alejandro winced, searching for the right words. "Upset is not the word I'd use."  
  
"I'm sorry -"  
  
"Don't be sorry." Their eyes met. "Never be sorry for your work, Sören. You have a gift."  
  
Sören gave him a sad smile. Then he sighed. "I don't want to go back home right away."  _I don't want to leave you just yet._  
  
"Where would you like to go? What would you like to do?"  
  
They went to the park. Sören needed to do something childlike and fun to dislodge from the heavy emotions of the last while, and the continued raw feeling from the incident yesterday at the studio. They got on the slide and the swingset together, feeling ridiculous, laughing. When they'd had enough, Sören had them stop at a nearby ice cream stand. Alejandro didn't want anything, but he offered to get Sören whatever he wanted, and Sören got a soft-serve cone, vanilla with rainbow sprinkles. Alejandro made a face at the rainbow sprinkles; Sören teased, " _Double_  sprinkles," smiling innocently at Alejandro's look of disapproval.  
  
They walked around the park for awhile - Sören almost took his hand, and felt sheepish about wanting to. Every now and again Alejandro would look at him, and Sören felt like yelling "I'M FINE" but then he realized Alejandro was just watching him eat the ice cream, and when he noticed Alejandro's cheeks turning pink as Sören's tongue lapped, Sören knew  _exactly_  what he was thinking. Sören's own cheeks flushed, and in that moment of fluster he accidentally got himself on the nose with the cone.  
  
" _Skít_." Sören laughed nervously.  
  
Alejandro pressed a napkin into his hand and Sören dabbed his nose - for a minute Sören got the sense that Alejandro was fighting the urge to lick his nose like the way Auli would clean him, and Sören was almost disappointed he didn't.  
  
He finished the cone, and it was then that they decided to go back and call it a night.  
  
When the Jaguar pulled up to the cabin, Alejandro didn't get out to walk Sören to the door. They just sat there, looking at each other. "This was nice," Sören said at last. "It... was nostalgic, you playing music and me making art while you did. We should do that again."  
  
"We should." Alejandro nodded.  
  
_We make a good team._  Sören swallowed hard, feeling his eyes misting up, not wanting to cry in front of him. He'd missed Alejandro so much, the natural rhythm they had together -  _Fuck._  
  
"Tomorrow, then?"  
  
"Yes. Good night, Sören."  
  
"Good night." Sören waved and gave a little smile when he got out of the Jaguar, carrying his sketchbook and pastels with him. As much as he was glad to see Dooku and his cat again, leaving Alejandro behind made Sören feel like every step he took was a lead weight.  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Thursday_  
  
When Sören got into the Jaguar and accepted Maglor's usual offering of iced coffee, Maglor frowned - Sören looked exhausted, even moreso than his normal struggle with mornings.  
  
"I didn't sleep well," Sören said, looking away as he knocked the coffee back.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
A little nod. "Nightmares."  
  
Maglor thought about pressing it, but then Sören ground out, "I'm fine," as if the concern made him grouchy, even though he knew Sören well enough to know the more Sören said  _I'm fine_  the more he was  _not_  fine. So he let it go.  
  
His second piano class got out after Sören's second art class was done; Sören was cleaning up in the art room, putting paintbrushes away. Maglor gave a little knock at the entryway and Sören  _jumped_  with a sharp gasp, the paintbrush cup dropping out of his hand, paintbrushes spilling all over the floor.  
  
_"Fjandinn blóðug helvíti_ ," Sören swore, catching his breath before he dropped to his knees to pick the brushes up off the floor.  
  
Maglor rushed over and was right there beside him, picking them up too. Sören's hands were shaking. "I'm sorry," Maglor said. "I didn't mean to startle you -"  
  
"It's fine." Sören shook his head, staring at the floor. "It's fine, I'm fine, it's fine..." His voice broke.  
  
Maglor reached out and put his hands on Sören's. " _Sören_. You are not fine."  
  
Sören looked up. There were tears in his eyes, and his jaw quivered. He choked out a sob, and looked away.  
  
"Sören." Maglor's hands squeezed, and he mentally nudged for Sören to look at him. "Sören. Take a deep breath." He demonstrated, taking one himself. Sören tried it, and then he fell apart, sobbing hard.  
  
Maglor shoved the rest of the brushes into the cup, put it on the table, and then he grabbed Sören's hands and pulled him to his feet. He was a foot taller than Sören, but Sören seemed much smaller, right now, in his vulnerability.  
  
He pulled out two chairs, and had Sören sit next to him, rather than across from him. Sören didn't speak for a moment, just crying as quietly as he could, shaking, and then Maglor compelled eye contact again.  
  
"Can you talk about it?"  
  
"I don't know what's there for me to talk about." Sören's accent was heavier than usual; Maglor could sense him struggling with English even though he'd been speaking it since childhood. "I'm a fucking crybaby and a coward -"  
  
" _No._ " Even though Maglor didn't raise his voice, the word still rang out. Sören's eyebrows went up at that, a little blink of surprise, and then Maglor said, more gently, "You are not a coward  _at all_. You had something very disturbing in here happen two days ago, and I know you had a bad childhood so anything violent like that is difficult for you."  
  
Sören nodded. Then he said, softly, "It wasn't... just... childhood memories."  
  
Maglor remembered his conversation with Dooku last week  _before Dooku got weird and quiet_ , he thought to himself, wondering what the hell was going on with that. He could hear Dooku's deep velvet voice in his head:  _Sören had a show... and I admired several of his paintings, and told him as much. I then found him in the bathroom, having a panic attack. Crying._  And Maglor had thought to himself  _Something happened between the time we broke up and the time Dooku found him. Something, someone, broke his spirit._  
  
"What happened," Maglor said, dreading the answer.  
  
Sören looked around nervously. "D'you think we could have this conversation somewhere else? I keep worrying that he..." Sören didn't have to finish the sentence; he was broadcasting  _in case Símon shows up looking for trouble._  
  
They went directly to the cottage. Vanimórë was out, and would not be back for some time. "Where's Auli?" Sören asked as they walked in.  
  
"Van's got him." Maglor hadn't slept well last night either - he was beginning to think that he'd empathically sensed whatever distress Sören was in last night, and though Elves needed less sleep than Men, he was still feeling it and not in the mood to cook something elaborate or drive. "Is frozen pizza OK? I'm sorry -"  
  
"Oh, that's totally OK." Sören chuckled, and nodded. "It's lavish compared to some of what I was eating for awhile there in London."  
  
_Gods, Sören._  Maglor cringed. He put on the oven, and then he brought Sören a ginger ale. "I'll let it preheat..."  
  
Sören nodded. His hands were shaking again.  
  
"Sören, I'm not going to force you to talk about any of this but..." He gave Sören a stern look. "I... think it would help. Whatever it was that made you react like that at the studio, whatever gave you nightmares last night - and it's the same thing, isn't it?"  
  
Sören took a swig of ginger ale, and nodded. "I'll tell you, but it's an unpleasant story."  
  
Melindo,  _my life has been nothing but unpleasant stories._  "Please."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. He leaned back in the chair, took another swig of ginger ale, and looked off to the side, like he was looking at something far away. As much as Maglor tried to stay out of the inside of people's heads as a rule, Sören was broadcasting loud enough with this that he found himself drawn in, seeing it as Sören was describing it - mists swirled and Maglor saw Reykjavik, Sören getting dressed up in leather pants and ruffly shirts, eyeliner and mascara.  
  
"So this story starts not long after we break up. I spent a year in Reykjavik, clubbing a couple times a week..." A tablet of ecstasy pressed into his palm, downing it, dancing frenetically, like a twisted form of ancient shamanic dancing. "Taking molly, having anonymous sex or with the occasional fuckbuddy." A series of one-night-stands, mental images of Sören fucking or being fucked, coming but not really satisfied, not  _sleeping_  with anyone he "slept with", all too frequently crying later, still missing...  _him._  This was already like a knife. "I met Van one night, and he was, well... special." Maglor saw it clear as day - the oil massage, Sören letting Vanimórë bind him, the teasing. It was a painful reminder of Barad-dûr, and much the same purpose - Sören had promised Maglor years before he wouldn't kill himself, but damned if he wasn't committing suicide very slowly, the fire in him dying more and more. That night, Vanimórë reminded Sören what it was like to  _live._  
  
_Go to the Hells, Vanimórë._  Maglor's jaw clenched.  
  
"So anyway..." Sören took a sip of ginger ale. "I actually told Van a little bit about my, ah, existential crisis, I guess you could call it, and he suggested I go to London. I did, two weeks later. Took the savings account you had me build, and got a place, got a job. Though I ended up getting a new place and a new job, moving in with this girl Frankie I met at a punk show." A mental image of a short, chubby girl with a pink mohawk and lots of piercings, cute in her own way, a fire in her eyes like Sören's own. "I couldn't do art for about a year after you and I broke up, but then I got into it again and Frankie encouraged me to do shows again and whatnot, and it was interesting to do it in a big city like London, lots more attention. Getting back into art filled that void inside me enough that I didn't quite return to my old behavior in Reykjavik, but I  _did_  have a Grindr account and, it was how I met Justin."  
  
Just the name set Maglor on edge. He braced himself.  
  
"Justin and I were supposed to just go out once, but then we hooked up again. It was good - not good like what you and I had, not even in the same league, but after over a year of sex that was just like... lukewarm... even a little something was, like, wow. He wasn't my usual type, in fact he was a footballer, and not a completely unknown one."  
  
Maglor raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Justin Roberts, plays for FC Arsenal. He was on the news a few months ago, won some kind of award." A mental image of Sören getting triggered enough that he went outside and smashed a pot on the ground, and fell apart crying much the same as he'd fallen apart after dropping the paintbrushes by accident in the studio. Dooku rushing out to him, helping him pick up the pieces, rocking him in his arms.  
  
"Things were OK at first, but it was like... you know the boiling frog analogy? Where you put a frog in a pot and you slowly turn up the temperature and the frog gets adjusted to it until it's finally being boiled and didn't know enough to escape? My relationship with Justin was a lot like that. At first it was just a little negativity here and there. 'You're not much of a cook.' 'Oh, that painting isn't really my thing.' 'You should get a better job.' He treated me like I was some kind of domestic servant, expecting me to get up and fetch things for him, wait on him, even though he was more than capable of doing that shit himself. And then it got to be... more."  
  
Sören looked very uncomfortable, and Maglor had a feeling what "more" meant - he wanted to tell Sören it was OK to stop, but, he also did not want to  _silence_  him. The truth needed to be heard, no matter how painful it was to hear.  _Because I pushed him into this predator's arms. I let him go, he felt rejected and worthless, and this is what happened._  
  
"He didn't support my art, and it got to the point where he actively opposed it. Saying things like 'Your art isn't that great.' One day he threw my paints everywhere, ruined one of my paintings by throwing it against the wall so the wet paint smudged. Another day, he took some of my canvases and poured bleach all over them and threw them into the dumpster. I'd stopped showing anywhere after that. I still didn't completely give up drawing and painting but I did it less and Frankie was the only person who got to see it. And I didn't leave him then, I know you're going to ask, because by that point he'd gotten to me. Verbal abuse here and there. He made fun of me for being different, being sensitive, acting too 'gay' for him. Aaaand he hit me, the first time I fought back and, well, he's an athlete and I'm not, and he quickly overpowered me."  _I didn't want to fight harder and_ kill  _him,_  Sören broadcasted, and Maglor wondered what  _that_  was about and if it had anything to do with the display of power he'd seen. "And of course it was fucked up, but he gave me the sob story about how he had an alcoholic father who sometimes beat him, and I was sympathetic because of my own abuse, and really wanted to believe that this man who had once been so charming wasn't  _really_  like that. I gave him chance after chance, and he kept taking those chances and pissing on them. He hit me a few times, though."  
  
Maglor saw it. Sören cowering like a beaten dog, crying as Justin punched and kicked him. The apologies later, the ice for the bruises. "As I got less sympathetic with time, I was also... more afraid." The threats.  _If you go to the police... I have friends with connections. That'll be the worst mistake of your life. It'll be the_  last  _mistake._  
  
"To try and make him happy, he... liked to experiment, sexually. I'd enjoyed it when Van restrained me that night in Reykjavik, and I thought, foolishly, that maybe if I showed Justin I trusted him - this was when things were starting to get bad, but not really bad, not just yet - it would help him. Except no, not so much. He completely disregarded my safeword, kept going when he knew it was too... overwhelming... scary... he was hurting me, using toys we hadn't agreed on and I was tied up and couldn't do anything to stop it... and when I had a panic meltdown he laughed at me."  
  
_Hells, Sören._  Maglor could feel his blood boiling. He could see that, too, he could  _feel_  it. This was already too much, and Sören wasn't done yet.  
  
Sören swallowed hard, had some more ginger ale. He rubbed his face, looking pained, and Maglor could tell he was about to drop the worst of the payload. "One night when I was sleeping, I woke up and he was... in me. No lube, and he just... was fucking me while I was sleeping, didn't ask first. I felt really, really gross about it afterwards, but I assumed it was just an isolated incident and wouldn't happen again. I was wrong. A few weeks after that we had a big blowout fight, and he was trying to initiate 'makeup sex' and I was just... turned off and done. He forced himself on me."  
  
Maglor saw that, too, feeling sick. Justin on top of Sören, who kept saying "no" until Justin gagged him, pushed into him, drove into him, Sören in pain, bleeding afterwards... He closed his eyes, feeling like he was dying inside. " _Ai,_  Sören."  
  
"Later on I confronted him about it and he said, 'You wanted it.' No... I did not. I did not want that at all. I told him no, many times over. He told me I was just being a 'cocktease'. I told him, 'What I am now is damaged goods, and you broke me.' And he said, 'Of course. And nobody else will want you. Nobody else  _does_  want you, didn't you tell me that when we started dating? Alejandro sure didn't...'" Sören's voice broke.  
  
Then Sören quickly choked out, through his tears, "I'm not blaming you for this, Alejandro. It wasn't your fault, that he did this -"  
  
_Is it not? I pushed thee away. This is where thou didst end up._  "Sören." Maglor felt like he was being torn apart inside... and he was feeling like tearing Justin apart, limb from limb. The fire was seething now, like it had in the days he rode off to war.  
  
"- this is on him, he did this all on his own." Sören shuddered. "But anyway after that... the second time he raped me... I was done. Or I tried to be done. He stalked me, and then he showed up at my flat, and he was starting with me again, and Frankie... beat him up. You should have seen it, little short girl taking on a man over a foot taller than her, dragging him down the stairs, threatening him within an inch of his life. He went away for good after that, but  _god_ , I still lived in fear for  _months_  after he was gone. Kept looking over my shoulder. Anytime I saw a guy about his height and build with the same sandy blond hair I jumped. I was convinced his 'friends' were going to find me and do something to me. It was bloody awful."  
  
Sören finished the ginger ale, setting down the can beside him with a little shuddery sigh. "I had a few more Grindr encounters after that and then I just... stopped seeing anyone, for a bit. When I met Nico, in London, he was the first person I'd been with in about six months or so. In the months after my breakup with Justin, I took a ceramics class, I got back into painting, and the show where I met Nico, it was my first show since before my breakup with Justin. And I really wanted to be happy about it but when Nico complimented my work I swear I felt like some sort of fucking  _impostor_  and like he was saying it just to be nice and all I could hear was Justin's 'You're not that great of an artist', 'You're wasting your time', "That painting is fucking ugly' bullshit -"  
  
" _No._ " Maglor gasped. The urge to kill was even stronger now. Raping Sören, beating him, was unforgivable. Acting like  _this_  about Sören's art was almost right up there. Whatever Sören was, whatever kind of power he had, it showed through his work - it was as if he had a large touch of his father's own fire - and someone  _disrespecting_  Sören's gift like this, was almost like profaning the name of Fëanor himself. Justin was unworthy to touch Sören, even look upon his art, the same way the Valar in their arrogance and hypocrisy were unworthy to possess the Silmarils that contained a piece of his father's soul... Maglor breathed in, trying not to explode with rage, because there was nowhere to direct it and he didn't want to terrify Sören, who was already shaken up from telling his story.  
  
Sören nodded. "So I was in the bathroom, hiding at my own art show, because even a fucking  _year_  after we'd broken up,  _he still fucking owned a piece of me_ , space inside my head. Having Nico tell me my work touched him, made him cry... it was too much, and I cried in front of him. He didn't, of course, find out the context behind that until later. He wasn't happy about it. I've never seen him that angry."  
  
The timer went off, and Maglor got up. He put the pizzas in the oven and then he sat back down. "He has a right to be angry, Sören. Hells, we're not together anymore and  _I'm_  angry."  
  
Sören nodded. He was rocking himself a little now, his eyes far away. "He and I broke up in 2016, and it's 2019 now? And I'm still reacting like this. That shit with Símon hit a little too close to home, and I fucking had  _nightmares_  about Justin last night. Three fucking years, I married someone who is the  _very opposite_  of abusive, treats me like gold, and I still can't fucking escape." Sören let out a sob, and the dam finally broke with him doubling over, weeping.  
  
Maglor found himself taking Sören into his arms, and just holding him, petting his curls, making little soothing noises. Sören cried and cried, and Maglor cried a little too, wishing he could do something,  _anything_ , to ease Sören's pain.  
  
When the pizza was ready, they ate quietly, and then Sören fell apart again. Maglor pulled him close again. "It's all right now," he soothed. "You're far away from him. He can't hurt you anymore."  
  
"I'm sorry for crying like this," Sören wept. "Justin used to call me a crybaby, and a coward -"  
  
"No you're not." Maglor rubbed Sören's head. "You're not at all." He took Sören's chin in his hand and tilted it, to look Sören in the eyes. The haunted look in those brown eyes brought tears to his own, again. "You... have been through an incredible amount of  _shit_  since you were a child. You have experienced things that have driven other people to take drugs, drink, commit suicide... you've walked close to that edge yourself... but something in you keeps fighting. There is a fire in you that refuses to die, and you know this, and marked it on your skin. You are one of the most courageous people I have ever known, pressing on, continuing to take joy and find passion in life, see the good in others rather than just the ill humanity is capable of... you still have  _hope_  when others would have lost theirs long ago, going through what you've endured. When you've fallen, you've gotten back up, harder and stronger. I admire that about you, I have since I first met you. It was part of why I fell in love with you."  _And still love thee._  "You have... an  _imperishable fire._ " It felt right to say - Fëanor would have approved of him, blessed him, he knew this; indeed, it was as if the spirit of Fëanor was guiding him, somehow. "That is the very opposite of a coward, who would have stopped fighting, stopped dreaming, stopped hoping."  _Ask me how I know, Sören. Thou hast more courage than I, and I was trained in the art of war._  
  
He let Sören cry some more. It was not the first time Sören had ever gone on a crying jag in front of him, but he'd never heard Sören cry so brokenly, and it  _hurt_. It hurt  _so much._  He rocked Sören in his arms, and at last, he found himself reaching into the Song, weaving a faint light around him - what he could do without being discovered, this wasn't the time for that, if at all - but it was something, enough that Sören's tears subsided, little by little.  
  
"I'll take you home."  
  
Even though it was a short enough walk, he drove Sören instead of walking him, because he could feel the bone-deep exhaustion from Sören's catharsis. Sören needed to rest. When they arrived at the cabin, he walked Sören inside. Dooku looked up from his desk and where he'd been nibbling on dinner - fish from the looks of it - and as soon as he saw Sören, who looked as if he'd seen a ghost, he got up.  
  
"What happened...?"  
  
"He told me about Justin."  
  
The words hung there, and then Dooku gave a nod, understanding right away. "I see." He put his arms around Sören, and though Maglor couldn't begrudge Sören his comfort, he almost let out a cry of protest as Sören changed hands.  
  
"There, love." Dooku rocked him a little. "Would you like some tea?"  
  
"Nothing with caffeine. I'm wound up enough," Sören mumbled.  
  
"I'll make you some lavender chamomile tea, sweetheart." Dooku glanced at Maglor. "Would you like some?"  
  
Maglor shook his head. "No thank you." While Sören needed to relax, Maglor... did not  _want_  to relax. The fire was still raging inside him.  
  
_Vanimorë knew many things about this situation. And he_  knew  _about Justin, and did not tell me._  His fists clenched, and he tried to calm down a little for the sake of not presenting threatening body language to Sören.  _Ai, Vanimorë... thou and I wilt have a few_ words _at thy return._  
  
Even though it was a warm night, Sören was shivering. Dooku wrapped him up in a blanket, and Sören, huddled in the blanket like it was a hood and shawl, took the hot tea with a mumbled  _takk_  and sipped it. He was staring off into the distance. Maglor wanted to die for the look in his eyes.  
  
He wanted to  _kill._  
  
Maglor's eyes met Dooku's. Dooku was all outwardly paternal and comforting to Sören, but Maglor could feel him seething as well. There was indeed an undercurrent of danger with Dooku, a promise that he could be lethal under the right circumstances; Maglor had no doubt that Dooku had gone into criminal defense not simply for the reasons he said he did, to champion the poor and downtrodden, to get justice for the falsely accused, but also because he  _sympathized_  with people who killed their abusive partners, or their current partner's abusive ex, continuing to terrorize them.  
  
_I like him. Quite a lot._  Those feelings were not something Maglor wanted to deal with right now; this was enough. He sighed softly.  
  
When Sören was finished with his tea, Dooku put Snúdur in his arms and Sören stroked the cat absently. After a few minutes of watching Sören and the cat, Dooku's eyes lit up, and Dooku took the cat and glanced over at Maglor. " _Elskan_ ," Dooku said, stroking Sören's face, "let us make you a nest, OK?"  
  
"Hm?"  
  
Dooku gestured for Maglor to get up, and Dooku pushed Sören in the direction of the bed. Then he pointed to the bathroom. "Get changed into something more comfortable, please."  
  
Sören shucked the blanket and began disrobing right there, presumably because both men had already seen him naked. Maglor hardened at the sight of Sören shirtless, and then throbbed some more at Sören stripped down to his boxer-briefs, seeing the outline of Sören's Prince Albert piercing. And those rings in his nipples... He thought of how he'd played with them, how his fingers had brushed the tattoos on his arms and back, how he'd tasted every inch of Sören's body... the _sounds_  Sören had made at being explored...  
  
Dooku gave Maglor a look as if to say  _I'm sorry he's doing this out here._  "I think he's a little shellshocked right now."  
  
Sören got out a T-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms and put them on without saying anything. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at them, like a child waiting for his parents' instruction. Except they were all adults here.  
  
And Maglor was still thinking very adult thoughts about Sören, his rage and lust intermingling, the fire burning hotter. It felt warmer in the cabin for some reason.  
  
"Here, love." Dooku climbed onto the bed and patted a space next to him. When Sören scooted back, Dooku wrapped him back up in the blanket, like a burrito, and then he gestured for Maglor to get on the other side. The two men pulled covers up around Sören and then Dooku placed Snúdur on top of the blanket fortress, who quickly curled into a ball, kneading and purring loudly.  
  
Dooku sat there beside Sören for awhile, gently rubbing him through the blankets, and Maglor sat on the other side of Sören, to help with the feeling that he was walled in, protected on all sides. After a little more time had passed he, too, was stroking Sören's back through the blankets, and when his hand accidentally brushed Dooku's he felt a little jolt, nervously glancing up at the handsome silver-haired gentleman, who just gave him a small smile, his dark eyes kind, filled with tenderness for Sören, and the warmth in them made Maglor ache all over again, now for Dooku as well as for Sören.  
  
Sören wasn't crying anymore, but he just looked numb, albeit broadcasting a raw sort of numbness, like emotional pins and needles. Not as wound up as he was, but still not completely safe.  
  
Maglor closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and began to sing.  
  
_When you're weary, feeling small,  
When tears are in your eyes  
I will dry them all  
I'm on your side  
Oh when times get rough  
And friends just can't be found  
  
Like a bridge over troubled water  
I will lay me down  
Like a bridge over troubled water  
I will lay me down  
  
When you're down and out  
When you're on the street  
When evening falls so hard  
I will comfort you  
I'll take your part  
Oh when darkness comes  
And pain is all around  
  
Like a bridge over troubled water  
I will lay me down  
Like a bridge over troubled water  
I will lay me down  
  
Sail on, silver girl  
Sail on by  
Your time has come to shine  
All your dreams are on their way  
See how they shine  
Oh if you need a friend  
I'm sailing right behind  
  
Like a bridge over troubled water  
I will ease your mind  
Like a bridge over troubled water  
I will ease your mind_  
  
Sören's eyes were closed now, and he was snoring softly. Maglor smiled fondly, remembering the nights of sleeping with Sören, the little snores he found cute rather than annoying, and Sören's body had been so  _warm_ against his, like a living space heater. The fond memories became that sharp ache again,  _longing_.  
  
But for now, Sören had been lulled to sleep, and Maglor hoped he would find some peace there.  
  
Dooku walked him to the door. "Thank you," he said softly.  
  
Maglor reached out and patted his shoulder. Dooku's cheeks flushed. "Thank you, for looking after him."  
  
"He's precious to me."  
  
"Me too."  
  
"I know." Dooku sighed. Maglor could sense him wanting to say something and not really knowing what he wanted to say or how to say it - the faintest flicker of an idea, not quite yet come to light.  
  
"You take care of yourself too," Maglor said.  
  
"I'll try. You as well."  
  
"Hmm."  _I shall be taking care of a few things, very shortly._  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Friday_  
  
Sören woke up before the alarm - not entirely surprising since  _god_  he'd gone to bed early last night. He had a vague recollection of Dooku and Alejandro trying to get him to calm down, building a sort of blanket fort for him, and Alejandro... singing?  
  
" _Alejandro, Alejandro, Ale-Ale-Alejandro, Ale-Ale-Alejandro_ ," Lady Gaga sang across the cabin.  
  
"What in the  _fuck._ " Sören rubbed his face like a disgruntled wet cat given a bath. He used the Force to snatch his phone over. "The fuck you calling this early for, mate."  
  
A little nervous laugh. "Sören, hi."  
  
" _What._ "  
  
"I know, I normally wouldn't disturb you at this hour, but... can I come over, quickly? It's important."  
  
"You can't tell me over the phone?"  
  
"No."  
  
Dooku's eyes were open now, and he made a little grunt. "Alejandro's swinging by," Sören said, patting him.  
  
"What for...?"  
  
"Fuck if I know." Sören shrugged.  
  
When Alejandro knocked, Sören opened it, still in T-shirt and pajama bottoms. "Come in?" Sören asked; he wasn't a morning person but he wasn't a barbarian, either.  
  
"I can't stay long." Alejandro frowned, and brushed hair out of his eyes. "Sören. I have a bit of an emergency to take care of and I have to go to London for a couple of days."  
  
"What...?"  
  
Alejandro nodded. "I'm really sorry. I'll be back, likely Sunday, maybe Monday at the latest. I really hate to run like this after last night, I wouldn't if this... situation... hadn't come up."  
  
"What kind of emergency? Is everything all right...?"  
  
"The family business." Alejandro patted Sören's shoulder. "Hang in there, OK? We'll talk some more when I get back."  
  
Alejandro took a step, about to walk off, and Sören said, "Wait." Then he reached out and hugged him, hard. Alejandro hugged back, as hard as he could, and they just hugged for a minute, rocking together. Sören could sense that Alejandro was very upset about something, and there was a sharp ache on top of  _that_  pain, not wanting to let him go. Sören didn't want to let go, either.  
  
But they did. Alejandro gave a slight raise of his good hand. "I'll see you soon."  
  
"Have a safe trip."  
  
And with that, Alejandro got in the Jaguar and drove off. Sören watched for a moment, feeling like his heart had sunk into the floor. Three little words had been on the tip of his tongue in that embrace, and for all of Alejandro's speech about him having courage last night, he couldn't bring himself to say them.  
  
He dreaded that Alejandro wouldn't come back, and he'd never get a chance to say them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're curious as to what Maglor got up to in London, please read the very excellent ["Night of Blood" by Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18360239).


	26. Feelings

**Feelings**

 

 _Friday_  
  
Between Sören's two classes, Van showed up at the studio - Sören startled again when he heard footsteps in the doorway, and then facepalmed, self-conscious at his reaction, and wondering if he was ever going to stop reacting like that.  
  
Van came over and simply put his arms around Sören, and Sören leaned on his shoulder with a little sigh. Van took a moment to stroke Sören's curls.  
  
"So, Van," Sören said when they pulled apart, "Alejandro stopped by this morning to let me know he was going away on emergency business for a day or two."  
  
"Yes, he said something about that to me as well."  
  
Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "As much as I hate to do this and on short notice... Alejandro usually keeps Nico company on our date night, and I don't feel right about leaving Nico by himself tonight, it doesn't seem fair to him. Would you mind taking a rain check?"  
  
Sören could tell Van was disappointed, but he nodded and said, "I understand."  
  
"Do you want to grab lunch while we're waiting for my ceramics class to start?"  
  
They did that, eating outside, feeding each other sensually like lovers, enjoying the nice weather. Sören was a little worked up eating from Van's fingertips, and Van eating from his, by the time they got back to the studio, and lamented that he wouldn't be spending the night with Van.   
  
The entirety of his ceramics class, despite focusing on his students and their work on the wheels and with glazes, Sören's thoughts were lustful, replaying the times they'd made love so far, entertaining new fantasies - Sören wondered what it would be like to top Van, remembering when Van had told him he'd had everything done to him, that night in Reykjavik four years ago. He pictured Van coming undone underneath him, making Van come hard, shattering him.  
  
He wondered if Alejandro had topped him. He could see it in his mind's eye. He thought of Alejandro and Van taking turns inside each other, and the mental image was almost too erotic to bear. He thought of his own past history with Alejandro, the times he'd been inside him, the sweet moans he would never forget, Alejandro erupting over him, and the ways Alejandro had taken him, the glorious immolation of their passion.  
  
For a brief, forbidden instant, Sören wondered what it would like to be with the two of them at the same time.  
  
Then what it would like to be with Van, Alejandro, and Dooku all at once.  _Fuck._  Sören felt like he was climbing the walls.  
  
Sören thought of Alejandro now, thought of his time in London, wondering what he was doing there. Sören remembered when Auli had run off, the argument that Alejandro and Van had that frightened Auli enough to run away - Van trying to talk Alejandro out of leaving Iceland. Sören wondered if Alejandro's "emergency business" trip was in fact just leaving altogether, not having the guts to say goodbye for good, and his mood changed from hot lust to sharp ache, hoping that wasn't the case. But he wondered if he hadn't scared Alejandro away last night, if Alejandro was thinking he was too fucked up, damaged goods...  
  
_That's nonsense._  He remembered the tenderness Alejandro had shown to him last night, holding him, helping Dooku build him a blanket nest, singing "Bridge Over Troubled Water", soothing him, taking care of him...  
  
...a tenderness that made his heart hurt, recalling the many times Alejandro had been nothing but patient and understanding when Sören had bad days and was haunted by his past. Indeed, before they'd even become an official couple, Alejandro had taken him to Akureyri to put flowers on his mother's grave on what would have been her birthday, and had held him that night, given him comfort.  
  
_Except maybe that happened too many times and he got tired of it and that's why he didn't fight that arranged marriage. Too broken..._  Sören closed his eyes, and tried to stomp those thoughts out of his head.  _He's not like that. This isn't that._  Yet he couldn't help going there all the same.  
  
Even if it wasn't deciding Sören was too damaged to try to be friends with,  _try to rekindle a relationship with_ , Sören wondered - half-hoped, and wanted to scream at himself for hoping - Sören wondered again if he had left with the intent to not come back.  _Please, no._  
  
He worried, then, that maybe Alejandro did intend to come back, but whatever this emergency business was, it was bad enough that maybe he wouldn't, maybe there was some sort of danger involved or he was in trouble - Sören thought about the warning Dooku had given that Van might have dangerous enemies, that this might extend to Alejandro's South American family as well.  
  
Or even if he wasn't in danger from that - he worried about there being a plane crash, or even terrorists.  
  
When the ceramics class was over, Sören began cleaning up the art room, and when he was done and went to the bathroom to wash his hands, he started crying. He thought of how he'd been spending time with Alejandro after his classes lately...  
  
...and he  _missed_  Alejandro.  
  
_I've been missing him for a long time._  Sören swallowed hard. They had been so perfect together, so  _right_  for each other. If Alejandro hadn't broken up with him years ago because of that arranged marriage, they would probably still be together now.  
  
Sören felt guilty, thinking like that. He didn't regret meeting Dooku, being with him... still wanted to be with him.  _In a perfect world, we would have been together and I'd still have met Dooku and the three of us -  
  
Oh my_ god,  _could you not._  
  
But it was too late to unthink that thought... unfeel that feeling. It was there, raw and honest. Sören's heart hammered in his ears, his mouth dry.  _I still love Alejandro. I want to be with him again, despite what happened._  
  
Sören cried harder. Just the fact that he was worrying Alejandro left to get away from the situation and wasn't coming back... there was still trust issues, abandonment issues, he had from what happened five years ago. And it was  _five years ago_. There was no way Alejandro felt the same way about him, was there?  
  
Sören tried to pull himself together, and walked back into the art room. Van was waiting for him. Sören gave a thin, sad smile. "Hi," he said.  
  
"You're upset." A pause. "You've been crying."  
  
"Shit, is it that obvious?"  
  
"Red eyes... and I heard you crying in the bathroom."  
  
Sören felt like he was going to fall apart again, but he tried to keep under control - key word being "tried", with his hands shaking, voice shaking. "I see. I... I have a lot on my mind."  
  
Van stood up, and he held out his arms. Sören walked over, and Van hugged him, arms tight around him. Sören wrapped his arms around Van and they rocked together for a moment. "He'll be back," Van assured him.  
  
"I wish I could believe that."  
  
Van took Sören's chin in his hand and compelled his gaze. "He  _will_  be back. He's just taking care of something important."  
  
"You know what it is?"  
  
"It's a mutual concern of ours, and he's handling it." Van patted him. "It shouldn't take long, and then he'll be back."  
  
"I... I miss him."  
  
"I know."  
  
Sören closed his eyes; the tears started to flow again, silently. Van leaned in and began kissing Sören's tears, and then Sören seized his face and kissed him, hard.  
  
Van kissed Sören back, and Sören found himself fumbling with Van's belt, the fly and zipper of his trousers. Van reached to undo Sören's jeans. Feverishly, they undressed each other, clothes pooling there on the art room floor, and Sören produced the small bottle of lube he habitually carried in his jeans pocket. Van climbed onto the craft table, and picked up Sören, putting him on his lap. He lay back and Sören poured lube over Van's hard cock, and then impaled himself, crying out when Van was buried to the hilt.  
  
Sören rode him hard - hard enough that he was glad the table was sturdy enough to support them. Van grabbed Sören's hips. "That's it, beauty. Take what you need."  
  
"I need so much," Sören ground out, working his hips hard and fast. Van's cock rubbed the sweet spot inside him, and Sören felt his balls tightening, already so close, so ready to explode, but he needed to be  _fucked_ , and so he kept riding, the stroking inside him more and more exquisite. "I need... so... much..."  
  
"Yes, you do."  
  
Sören took Van's hands and squeezed them, and their eyes met. "I need  _you._ " He had feelings for Van, too - it wasn't quite what he felt for Dooku, or Alejandro, but he was going to miss Van when the summer was over, he was attached, he didn't want this to end... Sören choked back a sob. It didn't quite work, and Sören felt tears blur his eyes again, flowing down his cheeks.  
  
Van pulled Sören on top of him, cupped Sören's ass and guided Sören into a slower rhythm, thrusting in him slowly. "Hush." He gently took Sören's chin in his hand and kissed him - soft and lingering at first, then deep. Sören moaned into the kiss, and moaned again as Van's hands roamed over his back and ass, then wandered up to stroke his face, his hair.  
  
"I need," Sören heard himself whisper, self-conscious but needing just the same.  
  
"I know." Van kissed him again, and kissed and licked Sören's neck, making him cry out.  
  
When Sören was leaning up once more, Van also leaned up so he could feast on Sören's nipples, licking and suckling them, playing with the nipple rings. Sören clutched Van's head, sobbing, riding hard once more, and then, when Van rested his forehead in the space between and planted a little kiss over Sören's heart, Sören gave in to his climax. "Van,  _elskan,_  oh god, FUCK," Sören screamed as the pleasure ripped through him.  
  
A few last hard thrusts and Sören felt Van spend into him, shivering. "Sören."  
  
They kissed hard, and then softer, catching their breath. They lay there on the table, both shaking from their orgasm, and a few minutes later when they were recovered, Sören sat up. "I'd cuddle with you for awhile but this isn't the most comfortable place to lay around."  
  
Van sat up - Sören was still on his cock - and they kissed one last time before Sören climbed off, and got back on the floor. He started to pull his clothes back on, and then so did Van.  
  
They walked out to their respective vehicles, Van's arm around Sören's waist, and then they took a moment to steal a few more kisses. "I'm really sorry, again, about tonight," Sören said.  
  
Van held up a hand in protest. "I told you it's fine, I understand." He stroked Sören's face. "It will just make me all the hungrier for our next time."  
  
Sören couldn't even begin to imagine what that would be like; a frisson went down his spine and he shivered. Van noticed his reaction and gave a predatory smile. He leaned in and gave Sören one last sweet kiss - a teasing kiss, tongues playing together, and he drew Sören's lower lip between his, sucking on it, before he let go. "Have a good weekend, beauty."  
  
"You too."  
  
It took Sören a few minutes to stop shaking and catch his breath before he could drive.  
  
  
_  
  
When Sören got home, Dooku looked a little sad. "Miss your buddy?" Sören asked as he walked in.  
  
"Yes, I suppose I do." Dooku sighed.  
  
"I do too." Sören nodded.  
  
"Well, it does no good to mope around. Would you like to go out to dinner?"  
  
They went to Serrano, and then, on a whim, Sören asked, "Do you want to go to the Nature Baths at Lake Mývatn?"  
  
They hadn't been there in a good while. On the drive there they listened to music, and once they arrived, it was a little busier than Sören would have liked, being summer tourist season, but it still wasn't awful. Sören kept swim trunks for both of them in his jeep, and after the mandatory shower, they changed and got in the hot spring.  
  
Beer was brought to them, and they cuddled together, drinking frosty beer in the hot water. The Nature Baths in the summertime was a very different experience than the winter - no aurora - but it was still relaxing and what they both needed.  
  
When they had their fill, they drove back home. After they got in and fed the cat, they decided to take another shower, this to clean off any mineral residue, and they got in the shower together. For a few minutes they just leaned on each other, resting in the heat of the spray, and then they began kissing, their cocks waking up, hard cocks rubbing together. They slowly, sensually lathered each other - Sören enjoyed lathering up Dooku's chest hair, and having his hair shampooed - and then there was more kissing, caressing, as they rinsed off.  
  
They made their way from the shower to the bed. After some more kissing and petting, they got into position to sixty-nine, and sucked each other until they came together, taking each other's hands as they climaxed. Sören could taste himself on Dooku, as well as the lingering sweet aftertaste of Dooku's own cum - he always tasted good - as they came up to kiss, and then just snuggled.  
  
The night was still young, and they decided to watch a movie together; Sören picked out  _Aladdin_ , which he had greatly enjoyed as a boy and gave him a sense of nostalgia. They curled up together on the couch with the cat, feeding each other cheese cubes and crackers and fruit slices as a snack. Everything was fine, and then, Jasmine and Aladdin were on the flying carpet singing "A Whole New World".  
  
_I can show you the world  
Shining, shimmering, splendid  
Tell me, princess, now when did  
You last let your heart decide?  
  
I can open your eyes  
Take you wonder by wonder  
Over sideways and under  
On a magic carpet ride  
  
A whole new world  
A new fantastic point of view  
No one to tell us "No"  
Or where to go  
Or say we're only dreaming  
  
A whole new world  
A dazzling place I never knew  
But now from way up here  
It's crystal clear  
That now I'm in a whole new world with you_  
  
Sören thought of Alejandro, and their travels together.  
  
_You help me see the world through new eyes. You give me back a sense of wonder I lost a long time ago._  
  
Tears came to Sören's eyes, and he quickly closed them.  _For_  fuck's sake  _don't you cry, don't start crying again, don't cry..._  
  
A few tears spilled. It was dark in the cabin, apart from the midnight sun glowing through the curtains, and the glow of the screen of Sören's portable DVD player. Sören hoped Dooku wouldn't notice. But of course, they had a Force bond, and Sören felt Dooku's arms tighten around him, a hand reaching in to pet his curls. Dooku gently kissed the top of Sören's head.  
  
And then Dooku said, simply, "I know."  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Saturday_  
  
Dooku let Sören sleep in, and went for a run. When he came back, Sören was up, drinking coffee, glaring at his laptop. The glare was of course because it was morning and Sören was not a morning person, and until he had sufficient caffeine in his system he tended to just be mad at the world, but nonetheless, Dooku remembered the way Sören was crying last night - and had cried the night before - and he got the sense it was going to be  _one of those days_  unless he intervened.  
  
So on a whim, he said, "Would you like to go to Reykjavik for the day? We haven't been in awhile."  
  
They drove to the airport, and took the forty-five minute flight from Akureyri to Reykjavik. They rented a car, and Dooku decided to further help Sören destress by driving to Margrét's bar and flat for a surprise visit. Dooku and Sören got out of the car and knocked on the door. After a couple of minutes, a very tall man with long red hair opened the door.  
  
"Kol!" Sören said, grinning. "Is my sister around?"  
  
Kol let them in, and went to the bedroom to let Margrét and Frankie know they needed to get up. Margrét and Frankie came out in their pajamas, looking grumpy at the disturbance, and then as soon as they saw Sören their faces lit up and they rushed over. Margrét and Frankie hugged Sören together, rocking him, and then Margrét grabbed Dooku, put him in a headlock, and gave him a noogie, as Sören laughed.  
  
"What brings you out here?" Margrét asked.  
  
"Oh," Dooku said, "I thought it would be nice to take a trip for the day, so I suggested we come down. Would the three of you like to spend the afternoon with us?"  
  
They had lunch at Fishmarket, and then they got on one of the whale watching boats. They saw puffins first. "I almost feel bad about eating those cute little fuckers," Sören said, looking at the puffins. "Almost. There's a lot of them and they'll overpopulate."  
  
When they spotted dolphins, Sören squealed and laughed and clapped like a big kid, a reaction Dooku found endearing, especially compared to many of the serious and somewhat sour adults on the ship, a couple of whom were glaring at Sören for making noises. Dooku put an arm around Sören and kissed the top of his head, smiling fondly when Sören looked up at him.  
  
"Sorry," Sören said, cheeks flushed. "I get kind of carried away."  
  
"It's precious. Those moments of joy are worth gold to me." He kissed Sören softly. "Stay gold."  
  
Sören kissed him hard, and Dooku kissed him back, not caring if they made a scene. A few people were staring when they pulled apart - Kol, Frankie and Margrét were all giggling, and Frankie showed Sören she'd snapped a photo of them.  
  
They saw dolphins again and Sören had another loud, exuberant reaction. Dooku smiled, feeling proud of himself that he'd made the decision to take Sören down here. He would always cherish this memory.  
  
_I hope Sören will, too, when I'm gone._  Dooku closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He was getting very tired of the concern for his age, his eventual mortality, creeping into his thoughts whenever he tried to be happy - seventy wasn't a death sentence - but there it was  _again_.  
  
There was a little gift shop near where they'd boarded, when they got back, and though Dooku knew it would be full of tourist kitsch, he let Sören pull him in anyway. Sören ended up buying two ludicrous hats - one with a plush dolphin on top, and one with a plush puffin on top. Then, Sören made that three, buying a third hat with a whale. Dooku knew, without Sören saying anything, he was thinking of Alejandro when he added a third hat to the pile.  
  
When the hats were bought and paid for, Sören put on the puffin hat, wearing it out of the gift shop. Dooku chuckled, shaking his head with a mixture of affection and exasperation.  
  
"You look ludicrous, darling," Dooku said.  
  
Sören beamed. "I know."  
  
"I am not wearing -"  
  
Before Dooku could finish his sentence, Sören slammed the dolphin hat on his head. Frankie howled with laughter, doubling over, and got out her phone to take more pictures of them; Dooku glared into the camera, while Sören made silly faces.  
  
"So," Sören asked his sister and her partners, "what to do now?"  
  
Margrét thought for a moment and then she said, "I have an idea... it's one of the things Frankie hasn't seen yet. I'll text you when you get in the car."  
  
Once Sören and Dooku were in the rental, Sören received the text from Margrét and cracked up laughing.  
  
"We're going to the dick museum."  
  
Going to the Icelandic Phallological Museum - which would be Dooku's second visit to the establishment - was not exactly how Dooku had intended on spending the Saturday trip to Reykjavik, but here they were just the same. Dooku had taken off the dolphin hat in the car, while Sören was still wearing the puffin hat. Sören continued to wear the puffin hat into the museum, making Margrét, Frankie and Kol crack up laughing.  
  
It got worse as Sören was photographed beside several penile samples, wearing the puffin hat. He saved the silliest moment for last. "Frankie, this is an elf dick."  
  
Dooku found himself glancing at Kol, who was shaking with silent laughter.  
  
"What the fuck?" Frankie cackled. "That's not real, is it?"  
  
"No," Sören said, "though if you believe what my brother has to say about our so-called 'elven' ancestor I imagine it would be bigger than this. He was supposedly a giant or something." He looked at Kol. "You're about the right size..."  
  
Kol grinned. "I probably shouldn't whip it out right here..."  
  
"No, you should not." Margrét rolled her eyes, but she was laughing. " _God_ , Sören."  
  
After the museum, there was a cart serving various kinds of street food and snacks; Sören walked over and got a  _pylsa_ , with Frankie looking somewhat uncomfortable at Sören's choice after what they were just looking at. She got a pretzel, and the five walked around, nibbling on their snacks, taking in the neighborhood and the summer sunshine. Some tourists were out and about, doing double-takes at Sören strutting in his puffin hat like it was a completely normal thing to be wearing. One bolder tourist, American from the sound of it, asked Sören, "Can I take a picture with you?"  
  
"Já, sure."  
  
Sören posed for a couple of selfies, giving the peace sign in one of them, and then the American asked, "Do you know Björk?"  
  
"Já, one time she and I wrestled a polar bear."  
  
" _Really?_ "  
  
Dooku choked back a guffaw - when they'd first become friends, Sören had told him how non-Icelanders had a tendency of asking him about Björk, and Sören liked to fuck with them, and now he was seeing that firsthand.  
  
The tourist had a video camera on Sören now. "Can you say something in Icelandic?"  
  
" _Móðir þín hefur geit kynlíf og ég borgaði föður þinn fyrir blása vinnu með stykki af gömlum osti._ "  
  
Dooku didn't understand all of what Sören was saying but he recognized the words  _mother, goat, father_  and  _cheese_  and had a feeling Sören was up to no good. He raised an eyebrow at Sören and got his "innocent face" that wasn't innocent at all, in response.  
  
When the tourist was off, Margrét was bright red, and gave Sören a playful smack in the back of his head. "Sören, I can't fucking believe you sometimes."  
  
"Whaaaat?" Sören grinned. "Listen, it's not my fault people are stupid!"  
  
" _Terrible._ " Margrét shook her head, laughing.  
  
Their last trip was to the park, Tjörnin. Margrét and Sören talked a little in Icelandic, while Frankie, Dooku and Kol quietly enjoyed the scenery - there were ducks, geese, and swans on the pond, grass lush and green, with lots of colorful wildflowers around. The spray of the fountain was relaxing to watch. Every now and again Dooku's ears picked up bits and pieces of words he recognized - he heard Van's name come up a few times, and when Sören and Margrét rejoined them, Sören sat on Dooku's lap... still wearing the puffin hat.  
  
"I asked for an invite to the wedding for Van," Sören informed him, "since we're, you know, dating."  
  
"That was nice of you." Dooku patted him.  
  
"We'll see if Van accepts, when I tell him."  
  
It was finally time to go back. Dooku hugged Frankie and Margrét - this time Margrét picked up Frankie off the ground and Frankie headlocked Dooku and gave him a noogie - and he shook Kol's hand. "It was nice to meet you," Dooku told him.  
  
"Same here," Kol said, nodding.  
  
As their eyes met, Dooku had the vague sense he'd actually met Kol before, somewhere, and wondered. London, perhaps?  
  
Sören hugged Kol, Frankie, and Margrét in turn. Margrét and Sören lingered, until Dooku cleared his throat. "We have to go to make our flight back."  
  
Sören nodded. He patted Margrét. "I'll see you in a few weeks, já?"  
  
"Já, you will." She waved. "Take care, you guys."  
  
Sören and Dooku drove to the rental - Sören was  _still_  wearing the puffin hat - and then they waited to board their return flight to Akureyri. When they got on the plane, with Sören continuing to wear the hat, Dooku shook his head and laughed aloud.  
  
He laughed again when they were back in Akureyri and driving home. Dooku was feeling refreshed by the trip, rather than exhausted, and he hummed to himself as he grilled outside. After steak, fish, and a salad for dinner, Dooku got back to his novel, while Sören played Stardew Valley and snacked on cheese curls. Sören had finally taken the puffin hat off - it sat on the coffee table now, with Snúdur coming around to inspect it suspiciously.  
  
When Snúdur batted at the puffin, Sören used the Force to move the hat on top of the fireplace mantle, and then with the Force, Sören moved Dooku's dolphin hat there as well. He unwrapped the whale hat from the bag, and put it on the other side of the puffin hat, and Dooku watched Sören look at it with a sigh, a wistful look in his eyes.  
  
"You got that for Alejandro," Dooku said.  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
"You know he won't wear something like that."  
  
Sören grinned. "We'll see."  
  
Dooku rolled his eyes. "I still can't believe you, wearing that puffin hat on the streets of Reykjavik."  
  
"It could be worse. I could have had a puffin codpiece to go with it."  
  
Dooku had taken that moment to sip his Earl Grey tea, and wound up snorting it instead, which was painful. The mental image of a matching stuffed puffin codpiece was too much, and Dooku doubled over laughing.  
  
"In all of the ridiculous moments of our life together," Dooku wheezed, "I don't think you could possibly outdo this one."  
  
"Challenge accepted." Sören used the Force to bring the puffin hat back over, put it on his head, and then put a cheese curl up each nostril, straightening his posture, giving Dooku a very serious look.  
  
It took ten minutes for Dooku to calm down, his sides cramping, his face hurting. Sören put the puffin hat back on the mantle, and wrapped up the cheese curls that had been in his nose, and resumed his game, smirking.  
  
"I love you, you know," Dooku said.  
  
"I know. I love you too." Then Sören got up, walked over to Dooku's desk, and gave him a hug. "Thank you for today."  
  
"You're welcome." Dooku rubbed Sören's back and patted him. "I wanted to help you get your mind off things a bit."  
  
"Jæja, there's... a lot of things." Sören frowned, suddenly serious-for-real. He sighed.  
  
Dooku saw him glance at the whale hat, and then he felt it - Sören had been trying to shield it, not an act of dishonesty, but because Sören himself didn't know how to deal with the feelings and didn't want to further complicate them by broadcasting. But for that brief instant, there they were, enough that Dooku himself ached, his arms tightening instinctively around his husband.  
  
"You're in love with Alejandro," Dooku said.  
  
There was a long moment of silence; Sören closed his eyes and winced. Then he just nodded, and with a shuddery gasp, he choked out, "I'm sorry." He began to rub Dooku's shoulder. "It's not that I don't love you anymore -"  
  
"- But you love both of us." Dooku took Sören's hand and kissed it. "Sören, look at me."  
  
Sören opened his eyes, too bright with tears. Dooku felt his own eyes mist, but he kept himself composed. "I understand, Sören. You have a history with him, and in reconnecting with him, it's re-awakened those old feelings."  
  
"Old, stupid feelings." Sören looked away. "He broke my heart five years ago. I... I can't do this again."  
  
"Maybe you shouldn't, no. But maybe you should."  
  
Sören looked back at him.  
  
Dooku took a moment to collect his thoughts, and then, stroking Sören's hand, he said, "Yes, he broke your heart five years ago, and I'm not going to make excuses for him or what he did. But he came here because he is obviously  _very sorry_ , and he wants to make things right, somehow.  _If_  you resumed a relationship with him, I highly, highly doubt it would end for the same reason it did before. I think he's missed you enough that he'd stick around this time."  
  
"It's a big if." Sören looked down. "I keep worrying that he bailed, that he just decided to leave, because after what I told him on Thursday night he thinks I'm too -"  
  
" _Sören, no._ " Dooku's voice was stern, a little more stern than intended. He softened his tone then, as he went on. "I am sure that he was  _not_  leaving to get away from you after what you told him. You were... in a bad way on Thursday night, dissociating a bit from flashbacks, so I know it may be hazy for you, but if you could have seen what I saw when he was helping me take care of you..." And Dooku's voice broke, the surge of emotion, remembering what he'd  _felt_ , even though Alejandro kept himself guarded, there was that break in his shielding when he could feel Alejandro's love for him, and all the regret of having walked away. He had decided, that night, that he was not going to stand in Alejandro's way if he wanted to pursue Sören, though he'd felt the hesitancy there - unsure why - and knew it would have to be a two-way street.  
  
Dooku took a deep breath. "Sören, when Alejandro gets back, you should tell him how you feel."  
  
Sören glared. "No."  
  
" _Yes._ " Dooku glared back. "You're not doing yourself any favors to deny it."  
  
And of course, Dooku himself felt like the world's biggest hypocrite for saying that, when he himself had also fallen for Alejandro. But he remembered what happened last week, when they'd both had too much to drink and Alejandro had fallen asleep beside him, and he tucked Alejandro in before he left, and in Alejandro's state he'd called Dooku "Uncle". Which was proof that Alejandro  _didn't_  feel the same way - Dooku was like an older relative to him. Dooku had tried to let go of his feelings and it hadn't quite worked - he'd masturbated to Alejandro twice this week. He was fool enough to have feelings, but not so much of a fool to admit having them and make the situation even more awkward than it already was for everyone. He'd resigned himself to the idea of sharing Sören and vicariously enjoying Alejandro through his Force bond with Sören.  
  
"I... I'm not gonna be ready to have that talk with him right away when he comes back, Nico." Sören looked down, and huffed. "And whatever business he's having to take care of right now, when he comes back,  _if_  he comes back..."  
  
Sören's voice broke then, he let out a quaver, and started to cry. Dooku could feel the distress in their Force bond, Sören worrying that Alejandro wouldn't come back,  _missing him._  Dooku missed him too, and it reinforced the ache he felt. Even if Alejandro couldn't want him that way - why would he? - he still  _liked_  the man's company, appreciated their friendship.  
  
"He'll come back, Sören." Dooku pulled Sören onto his lap and rocked him.  
  
"You say that, Van says that, but what if he doesn't?"  
  
"He will."  
  
Sören sighed.  
  
Dooku took Sören's face again, and said, "And, fine, you may not be ready to discuss that with him immediately... but don't put it off  _too_  long. A few days, at most."  
  
Sören frowned. Dooku kissed his forehead.  
  
"I'm afraid it'll fuck up our friendship if I say anything to him," Sören said.  
  
_Yes, I am intimately familiar with that feeling._  Dooku cringed, shielding himself even tighter. "I still think you should take that risk."  
  
Sören snuggled into Dooku's chest. Dooku felt even more like a hypocrite, angry at himself for the hypocrisy, but...  _This is what's best for everyone, if I keep my silence._


	27. Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish

**Good Riddance To Bad Rubbish**

 

 _Sunday_  
  
Sören and Dooku spent a portion of Sunday cleaning the cabin, and went into town to do laundry. They had a picnic after their hard work, and ended up making love outdoors in the grass, which was wonderfully sensual and romantic, putting them both in a good mood when they got home.  
  
Unfortunately Sören's good mood was short-lived, as he started worrying about Alejandro again. To distract himself, he sat down and sketched for awhile. He had the idea of making a gift for Margrét and Frankie's wedding, and began planning it out, a portrait of Margrét, Frankie, and Kol.  
  
This proved to be the right choice for distraction - the hours passed, and as the evening came, there was a knock on the door. Sören jumped. Dooku was in the bathroom, so it fell on Sören to answer the door. He got up, and there was Alejandro.  
  
Sören said nothing, and just rushed to hug him tight. Alejandro returned the hug, also squeezing Sören tight, and for a moment he nuzzled Sören's curls, and Sören gave a little sigh.  
  
They pulled apart reluctantly, and stood there, looking at each other. "I can't stay long," Alejandro said. "I got back a little while ago and I'm kind of worn out from the trip."  
  
"I understand," Sören said, nodding. "But... thank you for stopping by. I got kind of worried..."  
  
"Oh, there was no need to worry. I told you, it was just... business. It's been taken care of." Alejandro patted him. He looked past Sören's shoulder. "Where's Nicolae?"  
  
"Bathroom."  
  
Alejandro looked a little disappointed. "Mkay. Tell him I said hi, and... I'll see you tomorrow morning as usual, yes?"  
  
"You will. Rest well."  
  
Alejandro walked off - Sören noticed he came in the Jaguar, so Sören guessed he'd driven here directly from the airport rather than going home, which he found touching  _but that doesn't mean anything, that he stopped here first.  
  
Doesn't it?_  
  
Sören groaned as he sat back on the couch. He really did not want another night of wrestling with his feelings and arguing with himself about what a horrendous idea it was to even entertain the thought of getting back together with the man who'd destroyed him inside five years ago.  
  
As Sören picked up his sketchpad, he recalled that the parking lot at the Akureyri airport wasn't very crowded when they'd been there yesterday, and he didn't remember seeing Alejandro's Jaguar there, something he would have noticed as an observer of detail, yet the Jaguar had not been parked at the cottage over the weekend, either. The only way to London from here was to take a plane from Akureyri to Reykjavik and then to London.  
  
_Maybe I just missed seeing the car at the airport, considering how stressed I've been the last few days._  
  
Dooku came out of the bathroom.  
  
"Alejandro was just here," Sören said. "He says hi."  
  
"Ah."  
  
Sören sensed a wave of mingled disappointment, sadness and relief from Dooku, wondered briefly what  _that_ mix of feelings was about, and gave a little shrug to himself as he resumed sketching. For now Alejandro was back and things were back to normal,  _as normal as it fucking gets around here_ , Sören thought to himself as he drew a crown with a flaming solar wheel on Kol's head.  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Monday_  
  
There was an uneasy silence between Sören and Alejandro on the way to the studio in the morning, as if they were each waiting for the other to say or do something, but neither of them were sure what exactly to say or do. By the time Sören's classes were over he felt exhausted even though he'd gotten adequate sleep the night before.  
  
Alejandro and Dooku went to walk Auli after Sören was dropped off at the cabin, and Dooku brought Alejandro in when the walk was finished. For once, Alejandro had Auli with him - "he missed me while I was gone," Alejandro explained.   
  
Snúdur was, predictably, unimpressed, and slurked off to hide under the bed, but after dinner when the three sat on the couch watching a few episodes of the second season of  _Metalocalypse_ , Snúdur finally came out, and cautiously sniffed Auli, who was sitting on Alejandro's lap. Snúdur climbed onto Sören, and Auli sniffed Snúdur back. Snúdur allowed the examination, and Sören pet him reassuringly. Alejandro looked over his shoulder and gave Sören a little smile. Sören smiled back, and his stomach did flip-flops.  
  
Dooku raised an eyebrow at Sören as if to say,  _Go on._  
  
Sören pushed back.  _I'm not ready._  
  
Dooku and Sören walked Alejandro and Auli back to the cottage, and lingered at the doorstep. "Good night," Alejandro told them.  
  
Sören stooped to pet Auli. "Thank you for being such a nice boy to my kitty." Auli licked Sören's face.  
  
When Sören got back up, he was unsteady on his feet for a moment, and Alejandro reached out to help steady him. Sören gave him a quick hug, and then pulled back, waving. "Night."  
  
Sören took Dooku's hand on the walk home. Dooku gave him an annoyed look.  
  
"I told you I'm not ready to talk about that with him," Sören growled.  
  
Dooku sighed. "You can't put it off forever, either."  
  
"I know. But I need more time." Sören felt like he could barely make words in Alejandro's presence, this evening, never even mind trying to have a serious and deep discussion about the resurgence of old feelings and what to do about them.  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Tuesday_  
  
It had been a week since what happened with Símon, and Sören had anxiety about going into the studio at all, but his gut told him that Símon wouldn't be fool enough to return to the watercolors class, and sure enough, he wasn't there.  
  
The memory of the incident still remained, and Sören was not his usual bubbly self, though he tried to maintain calm and warmth for the sake of his students, especially the children's class. Alejandro kept giving him concerned looks while they were out at lunch, and on the way home Alejandro finally asked, "Are you all right?"  
  
Sören saw no point in lying about it. "I'm still triggered by what happened with Símon a week ago. I'm on edge, I wondered if he was going to show up at the studio for the class - I worry about him showing up other times -"  
  
Alejandro held up a hand. "If he does, he will be dealt with." His eyes met Sören's - his eyes were angry, his jaw set - and there was a weight to those words that sent a shiver down Sören's spine.  
  
Alejandro and Dooku went for a walk, and then Dooku came back and explained that Alejandro was giving them the night to themselves "so I can take care of you." He started on dinner, and Sören tried to distract himself by drawing, but he was too wound up for the kind of energy he needed to get back into the preliminary sketch for the painting he'd be gifting them, so he logged into Stardew Valley, and then he thought of the little dust-up he'd had with his brother a week ago and decided he needed to resolve that.  
  
**[5:15 PM] Sören:**  hej everyone  
  
**[5:15 PM] Sören:**  @Dagnýr  
  
**[5:21 PM] Dagnýr:**  Hi.  
  
**[5:24 PM] Sören:**  hi. I'm sorry for snapping at you last week.  
  
**[5:26 PM] Dagnýr:**  I am too. Can we take this to DM please?  
  
Sören opened up a private chat window with his brother.  
  
**[5:29 PM] Sören:**  I guess I've just gotten really touchy about everyone treating me like I'm fragile and have to be handled *~delicately~* and shit  
  
**[5:31 PM] Sören:**  I realize I have a history of mental health problems, between the suicide attempt years ago and all the ecstasy use after Alejandro and I broke up  
  
**[5:32 PM] Sören:**  but it's just... the constant worrying about me, and shit, has really started to get on my nerves  
  
**[5:33 PM] Sören:**  I understand y'all mean well  
  
**[5:33 PM] Sören:**  and I understand some of this is MY shit  
  
**[5:35 PM] Sören:**  Justin used to call be a coward and a crybaby, and you know how Einar was constantly making fun of me for being "too sensitive" growing up, and kids in school were shitty about it  
  
**[5:36 PM] Sören:**  and apparently I've taken all that to heart a little more than I thought  
  
**[5:38 PM] Sören:**  so when you guys freak out anytime I'm stressed out, it reinforces that whole "Sören is a walking mental health disaster" feeling, if that makes sense at all  
  
**[5:42 PM] Dagnýr:**  It makes a lot of sense.  
  
**[5:43 PM] Dagnýr:**  And I want to explain something from my perspective.  
  
**[5:44 PM] Dagnýr:**  I left you guys when I was fourteen, to go to Oxford.  
  
**[5:44 PM] Dagnýr:**  You have NO IDEA how much I struggle with guilt because of that.  
  
**[5:46 PM] Dagnýr:**  When you and Margrét and Ari were getting abused, still, I was away from that.  
  
**[5:49 PM] Dagnýr:**  And when I was in my twenties and  _should have_  taken you and Margrét in, or something, I was too busy with school. When Margrét had her suicide attempt prior to starting transition, I was busy with the Large Hadron Collider.  
  
**[5:49 PM] Dagnýr:**  I feel like such a selfish piece of shit for this.  
  
**[5:50 PM] Dagnýr:**  It's not that I didn't care.  
  
**[5:51 PM] Dagnýr:**  I just didn't think I could have been of much help, being as busy as I was.  
  
**[5:53 PM] Dagnýr:**  But in hindsight, something would have been better than nothing.  
  
**[5:53 PM] Dagnýr:**  I wasn't fucking THERE for you when you needed me, and now it's like overcompensating with needing to be there for you.  
  
**[5:56 PM] Dagnýr:**  And it's not just me wanting to feel good about myself by being the "good brother" and wanting asspats for what a good person I am, I genuinely care about you.  
  
**[5:59 PM] Dagnýr:**  I can feel it, when you're hurting.  
  
**[6:01 PM] Dagnýr:**  I've felt uneasy all day and I know that's from you.  
  
**[6:03 PM] Sören:**  yeah, and I'm sorry you can feel that  
  
Just then, he got a DM from Leja, which was surprising because Leja didn't DM him often at all.  
  
**[6:05 PM] Sören:**  I hate to cut this short but Leja's DMing me?  
  
**[6:06 PM] Dagnýr:**  oh god  
  
**[6:08 PM] Sören:**  hm  
  
**[6:09 PM] Dagnýr:**  Yeah you better take that.  
  
**[6:10 PM] Sören:**  ?  
  
**[6:10 PM] Sören:**  what's going on?  
  
**[6:11 PM] Dagnýr:**  Juuuuuust take it. I'll talk to you later, I love you. <3  
  
**[6:12 PM] Sören:**  I love you too? :squint:  
  
Sören then saw it wasn't simply a DM, but it was a group chat with Leja and Dooku.  
  
**[6:15 PM] Leja:**  Sören, hi, how are you?  
  
**[6:16 PM] Sören:**  I'm... doing all right  
  
**[6:16 PM] Sören:**  to what do I owe the pleasure  
  
**[6:18 PM] Dooku:**  What's going on, Leja? Are you all right? Is Hans all right? Is this about Kylo?  
  
**[6:20 PM] Leja:**  It's not about Ben, no. Hans and I are fine, Hans says hello.  
  
**[6:22 PM] Leja:**  ...Dad, you usually watch the BBC News at least a couple times a week, to catch up on what's going back home, right?  
  
**[6:23 PM] Dooku:**  Yes, why?  
  
**[6:25 PM] Leja:**  I think... you guys need to watch the BBC News tonight.  
  
**[6:26 PM] Sören:**  ugh, news is depressing  
  
**[6:28 PM] Leja:**  When I say "you guys" I mean you too Sören, this is relevant to your interests.  
  
**[6:29 PM] Leja:**  It'll probably be all over other media news outlets within the next day or two, but at least if you see this now you won't be surprised when it hits elsewhere.  
  
**[6:32 PM] Dooku:**  Dearest, you're being awfully cryptic. Do we get a clue as to what this is about?  
  
**[6:33 PM] Leja:**  No. You need to watch the news, Dad. I'm sorry I can't be more specific.  
  
**[6:34 PM] Leja:**  You should go do that now, actually.  
  
**[6:35 PM] Dooku:**  Let me finish making dinner and then we'll watch the news after dinner.  
  
**[6:36 PM] Leja:**  That's just as well, just... do it tonight, please.  
  
**[6:36 PM] Leja:**  Talk to you later. Love you, Dad <3  
  
After Dooku finished dinner and they ate outside, Dooku put on tea and Sören put on a stream of the BBC News. Sören was only half paying attention, poking at his sketch here and there, his eyes glazing over at the usual hot mess of British politics and other stories he didn't care about. When the headline came up of "Notting Hill Twenty-Five Scandal", Sören's eyes looked up from the sketchpad, the haze rolling back a little, but he resumed sketching, albeit more slowly.  
  
"Police reports continue to come in about the Notting Hill Twenty-Five, aka twenty-five individuals who were paying customers of a crime ring that supplied them with illicit drugs and underage prostitutes." There were a few British politicians whose names Sören didn't recognize, and a few celebrities whose names Sören did. And then a few sports figures who Sören didn't recognize, until he heard the name "Justin Roberts". He dropped his pencil.  
  
There was a picture of Justin on the screen now; Sören's mouth went dry and his heart was in his throat. "- the shocking downfall of rising football star Justin Roberts, confirmed to have spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on drugs such as speed and cocaine, and on prostitutes, most of whom were underage, some of whom had been trafficked into Great Britain from countries such as Bosnia. Testimony from the surviving sex workers alleges that Roberts forced himself on them -"  
  
"Jesus Christ." Sören felt sick to his stomach. Dooku put a shaking hand on his shoulder.  
  
"- Justin Roberts had disappeared at the time of the Notting Hill raid, but yesterday afternoon a body washed up in the Thames that was confirmed by DNA evidence to be him..." A few photos. "His body exhibited numerous lacerations, presumed to be from a whip, as well as wounds presumed to be from a blade, with cause of death determined to be disembowelment. His penis was removed from his body and found stuffed in his mouth; the skin had also been completely flayed from his penis."  
  
Sören couldn't breathe. His head was swimming.  
  
"Police have no leads on the murderer, though it is assumed it was someone who had information on his connections to the Notting Hill crime ring -"  
  
Dooku shut off the news stream. Sören was shaking.  
  
The first reaction Sören recognized in himself was  _relief_ , that Justin could never hurt him or anyone else ever again. Sören felt sick that he'd ever touched Justin, knowing now the full extent of his appetites - if he'd known Justin was into, or would get into, raping those who had been victims of human trafficking, that Justin was a  _pedophile_... he never would have been involved with him. He felt dirty and disgusting for even having touched Justin, even though he knew he wasn't responsible for Justin's crimes.  
  
The feeling of disgust rolled back to relief. He felt like "a good person" would maybe be upset Justin had been murdered in such a brutal way, but all he could think was  _he deserved it and then some_.  
  
His eyes met Dooku's, and Dooku gave a small nod. "Good," Dooku said. "Good riddance."  
  
"I... I need a freaking drink."  
  
Dooku got up and poured them each whiskey, putting ice in Sören's. He raised his shot glass in a toast. "To a fitting end to filth."  
  
Sören clinked glasses, and knocked his back. Then Dooku kissed him, softly.  
  
"You're safe now," he husked.  
  
He kissed Sören, more deeply, and Sören returned the kiss, needing to escape from the horror of what Justin was, needing to be reassured that he wasn't damaged goods, wasn't dirty for letting Justin touch him, even when he didn't  _know_  what the man was fully capable of. Dooku picked Sören up off the couch and carried him to the bed, and helped him undress. He got out a bottle of massage oil and Sören melted beneath his touch, finally arching to him, panting, trembling and begging for it, needing the fire of their love to burn him clean, wanting to fuck the pain away.  
  
They did. And hours later, when they were spent and Dooku was asleep holding him, Sören lay awake, thinking about the news report again.  
  
He remembered the ride with Alejandro back from the studio that afternoon, Alejandro's threat if Símon showed up.  _"...he will be dealt with._ " The gleam in his eye, the set in his jaw, the frisson down Sören's spine.  
  
_It has to be a coincidence that I told Alejandro the story of Justin and the next day he suddenly had to go away on an "emergency", citing "the family business", and Justin turns up dead in the river, right?_  
  
...Right?


	28. Unfortunate Implications

**Unfortunate Implications**

 

 _Wednesday_  
  
It was another day where Sören was not his usual bubbly self - indeed, he'd come very close to canceling classes for the day, even though it would have hurt him financially, and possibly longer-term as well as short-term if people got upset and quit. Sören had made himself come into the studio, but he felt a million miles away, and being around Alejandro at lunchtime was tense. Sören kept looking at him out of the corner of his eye, feeling the delicate balance of still desiring him and loving him, and wondering if Alejandro had been the one to murder Justin and what this  _meant_.  
  
At last, on the drive home, Sören decided he needed to take the proverbial shot in the arm and get one of those conversations over with, and he opted for the one that had kept him awake last night.  
  
"Alejandro," Sören said, looking over at him.  
  
Alejandro glanced away from the road.  
  
"I'm going to ask you a question, and I need you to be 100% honest with me about the answer."  
  
Alejandro nodded. Then he said, "How deep is this discussion going to be?"  
  
"That depends a lot on your answer."  
  
"I'll pull over for a few minutes." Alejandro pulled the car over, and turned off the car radio. They sat in silence, with Alejandro's hands folded on his lap, his head bowed as if in prayer.  
  
Sören licked his lips, his mouth dry. "Did you kill him?"  
  
There was a moment of silence - Sören's heart hammered in his ears. It was one of the longest minutes of his life, with Sören feeling like screaming at him to answer, but he waited, shaking -  
  
"Yes." Alejandro turned and looked him in the eye. "I did."  
  
"I see." Sören almost felt like saying  _thank you_ , but he was shaking even more now, his breath audible, losing his ability to make words. Whatever depth of discussion Sören had planned on, with his answer - he couldn't discuss  _anything_  now. His heart was in his throat, a storm of emotion he didn't even know how to parse.  
  
Alejandro maneuvered the car back into the road, and took Sören home. "I'll see you tomorrow?" Alejandro asked as Sören got out of the car.  
  
Sören just nodded.  
  
"Tell your husband I'll be ready for the walk in about ten minutes."  
  
It was as if Alejandro hadn't just confessed to homicide and everything was normal; Sören could have laughed at the absurdity of it but he was too shaken up as he let himself in the cabin.  
  
_  
  
Sören hadn't told Dooku anything - he just mumbled that Alejandro would be by in ten minutes on his way to the bathroom.  
  
Dooku waited outside, and when Alejandro approached the cabin with Auli, they were lockstep heading down the street.  
  
For a few minutes they walked in companionable silence, and then Dooku looked at Alejandro and said, simply, "I know."  
  
Alejandro nodded, looking straight ahead. "Did Sören tell you?"  
  
"No. I was a barrister for four decades. I didn't need him to tell me."  
  
"Fair enough." Alejandro looked over at Dooku. "So... now comes the part where you're going to lecture me, threaten me with the police, tell me to keep away from your husband...?"  
  
Dooku paused in his tracks, and stepped in front of Alejandro, and the two men just looked at each other for a moment. Dooku gathered his words, and then he said, quietly, "Had I known that you were taking a trip to kill that...  _filth_..." He raised an eyebrow. "I would have appreciated being invited along."  
  
Alejandro blinked - Dooku could tell that was not the reaction he was expecting - and then he gave a little smile. "Wow."  
  
Dooku nodded. He stepped back beside Alejandro and they resumed walking. "Nice work."  
  
"I like you."  
  
_I wish you liked me in the way I like you._  A little sigh, and Dooku patted his shoulder. "I like you too."  
  
"Thanks."  
  
_  
  
  
"So he told you." Sören leaned against the kitchen counter as Dooku chopped potatoes.  
  
"He did." Dooku nodded.  
  
Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "I don't... even know... how to feel about all of this."  
  
"Surely, you must feel  _something._ "  
  
"I feel a lot of somethings. It's all... rolled together."  
  
"Well, start with what's most easily identifiable."  
  
"Relief." Sören looked down, and then up at Dooku, and breathed a little sigh. "Relief that he can't hurt me again, can't hurt  _anyone_  again. I almost feel like I should feel  _guilty_  for what was done to his body - it was savage - but I can't. I keep feeling like he deserved it. He showed no remorse for what he did to me, and he did worse to those poor trafficked kids."  
  
"Now you understand part of why I went into criminal justice. I had a hard time morally condemning acts of vigilante justice such as the one we've just seen. I believe  _most_  people deserve a chance at redemption, but I also believe some people are beyond redemption and some of those people deserve to die. I cannot fault a father for wanting to kill the man who raped his daughter. I cannot fault a woman for killing a man who abused her, made her live in terror, every day for years. I did my best to show compassion to these sorts of people, sometimes the  _only_  compassion they received from society that would punish them for doing what, in the old days, would have been done without hesitation. Sometimes I feel that as society has become more civilized in many ways, we've become  _less_  civilized in other ways."  
  
"I think I always sensed that sort of dark side in you, and it was part of what drew me to you, after what I'd been through. Knowing you'd... protect me... if I needed it." Sören shivered at the delicious mental image of Dooku in protective mode.  
  
Dooku put down the knife he was working with, and his hand covered Sören's. Then he resumed work.  
  
"So," Sören went on, "it's not like I'm standing here thinking Alejandro did something  _wrong_ , though I am shocked by the brutality of how he, ah... went about it. The report said numerous lacerations from a whip, a blade, like Alejandro tortured him first. Cutting off his cock, flaying it - death by disembowelment. That's pretty fucking hardcore."  
  
"What that wretched Justin did to those poor trafficked children... and to you... was pretty fucking hardcore."  
  
"Yes." Sören nodded. "But... Alejandro's dangerous. He's not someone to get on the wrong side of."  
  
"No. You're not on the wrong side of him, however."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "Well, that's part of the... mixture... of feelings here. Remember when you told me to be careful with Van because your educated guess was he's the son of some Russian oligarch and probably has powerful enemies? And I'd suspected, when we were together, that Alejandro's family had something shady going on - too much money, involved in some kind of war - and he never actually denied that to me? And the fact that they seem to have known each other for  _a long time_  implies there's some sort of connection between whatever shadiness Alejandro's family is involved in, and Van's background? Those are some unfortunate implications on their own, but now, with this... assassination, I guess you could call it, and nobody who's committed murder for the first and only time does it like that, I am ninety-nine percent sure Alejandro has done it before..."  
  
Dooku nodded. "I would be willing to bet money he's killed before, and I only bet on sure things."  
  
"... this is some straight up mafia shit."  
  
"I was following more of the news reports while you were at work. Did you know there was a gas explosion connected to this? Which seems rather suspiciously timed. I have a feeling he may have been behind the raid. If he knew people who knew people, or if Van did... that would rather confirm  _something_  is afoot with their backgrounds."  
  
"You don't think he was involved with the crime ring, though."  
  
"My gut instinct says no."  
  
Sören nodded. "But at the same time... how are you calling it? Russian mafia? South American cartel? The remnants of some government, like Pinocchio or whatever his name was, but he was Chilean, not Brazilian -"  
  
" _Pinochet_ , and I thought that too, perhaps his supporters exiled to another South American country like Brazil. Another thought of mine was that perhaps Alejandro's family was tied to Pablo Escobar or someone similar and exiled to Brazil as well."  
  
Sören folded his arms. "That kind of gets in the way of my feelings for him, Nico. I love him, I still want him - I'm  _touched_  by the fact that he killed for me, maybe that makes me a shitty person -"  
  
"No. It doesn't."  
  
" - but I keep thinking  _He killed this man after what I told him about the abuse I'd been through. Does that mean he still loves me?_  and I feel like my priorities are skewed, some advice columnist right now would probably be telling me to run..."  
  
"The heart wants what it wants."  
  
"It does. But that doesn't mean that what it wants is  _logical or sane._  I love him, but if he's actively involved in some mafia shit, or cartel shit..." Sören shuddered. "That has potential to, ah, complicate things."  
  
"It does, and as someone who practiced law for four decades, I would be remiss to tell you otherwise. But you were involved with him for five years and things went well during that time, and it seems that up until this point things were fairly 'normal'." Dooku made air quotes. He transferred the cut potatoes into a skillet. "So yes, there are risks if you were to reconnect with him - it's not something to consider lightly. I would however argue that you've already been at risk, and additional risk from dating Van."  
  
"Hm, you're right."  
  
"The other thing I've been considering..." Dooku turned on the stove. "It may be that Alejandro and Van  _aren't_ involved on the wrong side of the law at all."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"You and Alejandro traveled a lot. He lived in the States the last five years, and it's come up in conversation with him that he used to live in the United Kingdom as well."  
  
"Já... and he lived in Amsterdam, once upon a time."  
  
"How old is he, exactly?"  
  
"He's eight years older so... forty-three? Forty-four in March?"  
  
"If we factor in time in Brazil, that seems like rather a lot of moving around for someone that age."  
  
"So what does that mean, exactly?"  
  
"He may be a government agent, which may also explain why he had information on how to find Justin, and the raid happened as it did. My educated guess would be MI5, but he might also be CIA, Mossad... one of those agencies. Most likely a sleeper agent if he is."  
  
"You think he might be a  _spy_  or some shit?"  
  
"Sören, have you looked at him? He's not in the physical condition of a civilian. Him working for some sort of government as a James Bond type makes more sense than him being a mafioso's son."  
  
That sentence was telling for more than one reason. Sören noticed Dooku's cheeks flush ever so slightly pink.  _It's clear_   you've  _looked at him._  Sören was amused by this - indeed, the thought that Dooku might have a little crush on Alejandro tickled him - but now was not the time to press it. "I've noticed his physique, yes," Sören said dryly. "It just never occurred to me that sort of thing would make him a  _spy_ , considering you know, you're also in great shape, you work out, and all of that."  
  
"I work out, and thank you, but he... has a bit more definition than I do." Dooku's face was really red now.  
  
Sören bit his lower lip, trying not to laugh. Dooku gave him a disgruntled look, picking up on the amusement, and Sören let out a little snort. Then he composed himself, because this was very serious business and he needed to be serious. "Wow. This is... a lot."  
  
"Indeed it is. But it's something that I'm going to suggest you discuss with him  _before_  you bring up the possibility of rekindling a relationship with him, because if that's going to happen, you need to be informed.  _I_ need to be informed, so I'm not eaten alive with guilt at letting you go off with someone who will put you in harm's way."  
  
"Well, Nico, I wouldn't be  _going off_. I want to be with both of you, I'm not leaving you -"  
  
"No, but I won't be alive forever, either."  
  
Sören sighed. "Could you quit talking about that."  
  
"If we're facing facts here, we need to face facts. I am seventy. I am not immortal."  
  
Sören walked closer to Dooku and put his arms around him, squeezing tight, leaning into his shoulder. "I need you to stay with me for as long as you can."  
  
Dooku kissed the top of his head. "I will try."  
  
"So... when do you propose I talk to him about all of this?"  
  
"Tomorrow. Let's have one last night of so-called 'normalcy' before we blow this powder keg."  
  
"All right."  
  
  
_  
  
  
_Thursday_  
  
In the car on the way to the studio, Sören asked Alejandro, "Would it be all right if I came over for a bit this evening?"  
  
Alejandro nodded. "Sure, that would be fine."  
  
"Would it be too much trouble for you to ask Van to give us some privacy?"  
  
"No, I'll give him a call and let him know."  
  
When Sören's classes were over, Alejandro took him directly to the cottage. Van had been spoken to and was not there, but Auli had been left behind, and Auli enthusiastically greeted them at the door. He was a little more hyper than usual, presumably from having been left alone for a couple hours, and he bounced over to Sören as he sat on the couch.  
  
"Can I get you anything? Coffee, tea..."  
  
"Coffee,  _takk._ "  
  
Alejandro made coffee and came out a few minutes later. Sören sat there, sipping his drink, trying to collect his thoughts. He had been rehearsing the conversation all day in his head, but now that he was actually here and about to have the conversation, words failed him.  
  
His mind drifted back to Dooku remarking on Alejandro's physique. Sören couldn't help noticing it now himself, in the way Alejandro looked in his black T-shirt and faded jeans. He wanted to run his hands over that sleek body, trace every part of him with his tongue...  
  
Heat flooded Sören's cheeks, and his hands shook. He ended up spilling coffee all over himself. "Shit."  
  
"Let me grab a wet towel..." Alejandro got up and rushed into the kitchen.  
  
At the sound of the tap in the kitchen, Auli bounced off the couch, but instead of going onto the floor, he leapt onto the coffee table before jumping on the floor, and knocked over a large book that had been on the coffee table.  
  
The book tumbled next to Sören's feet. He put the coffee down and bent to pick it up. Except the book was hollow, and a couple of the contents had also spilled out and were on the floor next to the book. Not able to restrain his curiosity, Sören opened the book and the first thing that caught his eye was a revolver sitting inside the hollow opening. Sören had seen enough television and movies and rap videos to guess it was a Glock.  
  
There was an envelope that Sören picked off the floor, and a card. Sören flipped the card over and saw it was an Alaskan drivers license - a picture of Alejandro, except the name listed on the license was Mark Lowry. He opened the envelope that the card had fallen out of and he saw a passport, birth certificate, and other documents all with the same name. Mark Lowry, born March seventeenth, 1976, in Mystic, Connecticut.  
  
There were other envelopes next to the revolver. He saw paperwork for Alejandro Magalhães, born March seventeenth, 1976, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  
  
Another envelope. Another Mark Lowry identification, this one British, born March seventeenth, 1976, in Stretford, Lancashire.  
  
Kenneth Finn MacLeod, born March seventeenth, 1976, in Calgary, Alberta.  
  
Marco LaRaia, born March seventeenth, 1976, in Basilicata, Italy.  
  
Alejandro came back in with a fresh T-shirt and a wet towel and he froze when he saw Sören with the open book on his lap, the fake IDs and passports arranged on the coffee table.  
  
Without thinking, just acting on pure instinct, Sören picked up the gun out of the book. "Sit down." He didn't even care about the coffee stain on his shirt now.  
  
"Sören -"  
  
Sören aimed the revolver at Alejandro's head. He'd never fired a gun in his life, and his hand was shaking. "I said  _sit the fuck down._  Now."  
  
Alejandro took a deep breath, and sat.  
  
Sören lowered the pistol, though it was still in his hand, still pointed in Alejandro's direction. With his free hand, he gestured to the display on the coffee table. "What's all of this?"  
  
Alejandro looked down, and sighed. Then he looked back up at Sören, meeting his eyes. "Something you weren't supposed to find." Under his breath he muttered "thanks, Vanimórë."  
  
Sören's eyes widened at that - it was a name he'd never heard before, presumably Van's full name, which made this even curiouser,  _what the hell language is that_. But that was another topic for another time, this was more pressing. "Your name isn't actually Alejandro, is it?"  
  
"No." He frowned. "It's not."  
  
Sören leaned back on the couch. It was one thing for him and Dooku to speculate, as they had last night, that "Alejandro" had connections to organized crime  _or_  was working as a sleeper agent for some government intelligence. But having either of those possibilities absolutely confirmed beyond the shadow of a doubt, with all of the fake IDs and documentation here, and the  _gun_  he was now holding in his hand... Sören shuddered. This was far worse than anything he could have imagined. Sören felt like all the hopes he'd had of reuniting with him, somehow, were crashing down around him. "Who are you, and who do you work for?"  
  
"Sören..." Alejandro leaned forward and folded his hands. "This is not something I can easily answer -"  
  
"Yes, it is."  
  
"No. It's not. And by telling you, I'm potentially endangering you -"  
  
"Oh, like you haven't already put me in danger coming up here? Like you hadn't already put me in danger living with me for close to five years? Yes, tell me some more about how not telling me the truth is keeping me safe." Sören held up the gun again. "I asked you a fucking question."  
  
"Technically, you asked me two questions -"  
  
"You're going to answer them."  
  
" _Sören._ " Even though Alejandro didn't raise his voice, it still rang out as if he had. Sören's hair stood on end. "Like I just told you, this is not something I can give a simple answer  _for_ , and if I  _do_  tell you the full, 100% unadulterated truth,  _your life is going to change radically_ , in ways you are not prepared for."  
  
"Like what, Witness Protection or some shit?"  
  
Alejandro got up. Sören held up the gun, but Alejandro still walked over to him, a bold move. Sören's hand shook, and then suddenly Alejandro pulled him close - he towered over the seated Sören - and Sören found himself falling apart in Alejandro's arms, giving a strangled sob. He felt Alejandro take the gun away, and then Alejandro took Sören's chin in his hand and gave him a stern look.  
  
"If I were someone else, you'd be dead right now," Alejandro said. "You don't know how to use a gun, do you?"  
  
"Er, no."  
  
" _I do._ " Alejandro put the gun down. He put his hands back on Sören's shoulders. "Now, Sören. What I have to tell you about all of this is... a lot. It's complicated."  
  
"You keep saying 'it's complicated.'"  
  
"It's more complicated than you can imagine, and  _you_ , waving that gun at me... which again, would have gone very badly if I were someone else and knew you didn't know how to use that thing... you're not calm enough to hear what I have to tell you."  
  
"Dammit, Alejandro, can you expect me to  _be_  calm with all of this shit?" Sören felt ready to explode.  
  
"I didn't say 100% calm, I said 'calm enough'. What you're going to do now -"  
  
"- you don't get to order me around -"  
  
" _What you're going to do now_ , is go home. Chill out. I don't want to be in a position where I'm forced to defend myself against you, do you understand? This is a lot, and I understand it's a lot, and it's a lot more than you think from what you see here. And for me to explain it to you, I need you to be  _significantly calmer than you are right now_. So you're going to go home, and in approximately three days - Sunday, or Monday at the latest - you can come back here and I will tell you everything. All of it."  
  
"Já, and three days gives you an opportunity to bail, to leave without telling me."  
  
"I won't." Alejandro folded his arms. He looked unhappy at that. "As much as I really  _don't_  want to tell you the story of what you're seeing, I did come here for closure, and I owe you that after what we had. So you'll get the truth from me. When I'm sure I'm not going to have to fight you off me, and I am absolutely sure right now that things  _will_  escalate until you've had some time to  _calm down_."  
  
"Just answer me one thing."  
  
"Depends on what that one thing is."  
  
"It's... simple... all things considered." Sören looked up. "Does Van know about all of this?"  
  
A pause, a nod. "Yes. Van knows."  
  
"Please be kind enough to tell him that I can't go out with him tomorrow, for obvious reasons, and it would probably be best for him to not show up at the studio tomorrow, either, till this... gets resolved."  
  
Sören stood up then - he had never been so acutely aware of the height difference between them until now, Alejandro only had a foot on him but right now seemed even taller. Their eyes met, and Sören looked away as he brushed past, towards the door.  
  
"There's one more thing," Alejandro said.  
  
Sören paused.  
  
"I assume you're going to tell your husband, which is fine, this... affects our friendship, I think... but it would be in your best interests to not tell other people. Like if you wanted to vent to your best friend Frankie about the IDs, my real name not being 'Alejandro'... I would strongly caution you against that, you don't know what mess you'd potentially be starting. Let me explain things to you first."  
  
Sören nodded. "Fine."  
  
"I'll see you in a few days."  
  
Sören slammed the door as he left. He felt sick.  _You've been lying to me all this time, I can never trust you again._  
  
And yet, Sören would be back, in due time.  _You still owe me the fucking truth._


	29. Black Balloons

**Black Balloons**

 

 _Saturday_  
  
Sören slept in, stirred by the sound of Dooku up and about, putting his clothes on. He rolled around in bed with a groan, and then sat up, rubbing his face, wincing.  
  
He'd managed to go to the studio yesterday, but not even the ceramics class snapped him out of his funk. He'd come home feeling exhausted, enough to go to bed early. Looking at the clock, he'd slept a good twelve hours.  
  
"Shit," he said.  
  
Dooku came over and kissed his forehead. "There's a fresh pot of coffee waiting for you."  
  
" _Takk._ " Sören looked up at him. "You're heading out?"  
  
Dooku nodded. "I'm going for a bike ride." He frowned. "I need to clear my head for awhile, and today is the best opportunity for riding since we're supposed to get rain the next few days, maybe even thunderstorms."  
  
"OK. I'll try to work on my wedding gift for Margrét and Frankie."  
  
"That's a good idea." Dooku affectionately tousled Sören's curls. "Then perhaps when I get back we can go out to dinner, do something enjoyable."  
  
"'Kay."  
  
Dooku paused a moment at the door to pet Snúdur. "Be a good boy while I'm gone, yes," he cooed to the cat. He waved to Sören, and then he was gone.  
  
Sören climbed out of bed, fixed his coffee, and sat down on the couch. He played Stardew Valley for a bit to wake up, and then he grabbed his sketchpad. The preliminary sketch was almost done, so he got back up to grab a canvas, paints, and his easel, and have it ready for when the sketch was completed.  
  
But when the sketch was completed, he felt himself getting upset about "Alejandro" again, and angry with himself for still loving him. It was early afternoon now, and Dooku wouldn't be back for hours. Sören wanted to scream.  
  
He opened up the chat server.  
  
  
**[11:57 AM] Sören:**  henlo fambly  
  
**[11:59 AM] Ari:**  :wave:  
  
**[12:01 PM] Sören:**  Ari, hi! I haven't seen you in a hot minute lol  
  
**[12:01 PM] Sören:**  what's going on  
  
**[12:03 PM] Ari:**  I've been busy. I check things here and there, but I haven't had a lot of mental bandwidth to respond.  
  
**[12:04 PM] Sören:**  well it's good to see you, I've missed you *hug*  
  
**[12:05 PM] Ari:**  I've missed you too *hugs back*  
  
**[12:05 PM] Ari:**  How are  _you_? How's life?  
  
**[12:07 PM] Sören:**  life. don't talk to me about life  
  
**[12:09 PM] Qui-Gon:**  *quietly hands Sören a towel*  
  
**[12:11 PM] Sören:**  Qui! you hoopy frood! you're another one I haven't seen in forever  
  
**[12:11 PM] Sören:**  how are you and Obi?  
  
**[12:13 PM] Qui-Gon:**  Doing well. I apologize for my absence, I've been working longer hours at the vet clinic. I DM your husband occasionally to  ~~spam him with bad memes~~  say hello, but my online time has been limited.  
  
**[12:13 PM] Qui-Gon:**  We are still planning on coming out for the wedding, though! We are in sore need of some vacation time.  
  
**[12:15 PM] Sören:**  that's good, we're looking forward to seeing you!  
  
**[12:15 PM] Sören:**  also that's a mood right there  
  
**[12:17 PM] Sören:**  I need a vacation from, like, everything  
  
**[12:19 PM] Ari:**  what's wrong?  
  
**[12:22 PM] Sören:**  it's the ongoing saga of Alejandro  
  
**[12:23 PM] Sören:**  we were on our way to becoming friends again, he has a job teaching music at my studio, and we, ah, kind of had a blowout a couple days ago.  
  
**[12:23 PM] Sören:**  just very pissed off at him right now  
  
**[12:24 PM] Qui-Gon:**  Maybe if you guys talk about it? Get Dooku to mediate? He's good at things like that.  
  
**[12:25 PM] Sören:**  this is a bit complex, even for my husband's negotiation skills  
  
**[12:26 PM] Sören:**  *wet cat face*  
  
**[12:28 PM] Sören:**  it doesn't help that Alejandro isn't great at talking about stuff  
  
**[12:28 PM] Sören:**  to the point where I'm starting to feel like I never knew him at all  
  
**[12:29 PM] Qui-Gon:**  oh, it's probably not that bad, is it?  
  
**[12:30 PM] Sören:**  no it really is that bad  
  
**[12:32 PM] Sören:**  it gets frustrating sometimes because he has A Dark And Troubled Past and he, like, never talks about it  
  
**[12:34 PM] Sören:**  there's been bits and pieces but not a complete picture  
  
**[12:36 PM] Ari:**  But you do know some things.  
  
**[12:35 PM] Sören:**  some  
  
**[12:37 PM] Sören:**  like, for example, his brother Maitimo killed himself  
  
**[12:40 PM] Ari:**  Oof, that's rough.  
  
**[12:41 PM] Sören:**  yeah  
  
**[12:47 PM] Ari:**  Also, were his parents Tolkien nerds?  
  
**[12:50 PM] Sören:**  

[Image: the "confused Nick Young" reaction meme.]

 

 **[12:52 PM] Ari:**  Right. So, Sören, what of Tolkien have you read, exactly?  
  
**[12:53 PM] Sören:**  I read the LOTR trilogy when I was, like, in secondary school. don't remember all of it.  
  
**[12:53 PM] Sören:**  and that's it  
  
**[12:53 PM] Sören:**  I know there's more, like he wrote the Milli Vanilli or whatever, but I haven't read it  
  
**[12:55 PM] Ari:**  ...  
  
**[12:55 PM] Ari:**  ...  
  
**[12:56 PM] Ari:**  the  _Milli Vanilli_  you did NOT just  
  
**[12:57 PM] Sören:**  what  
  
**[12:58 PM] Ari:**  it's  _the Silmarillion_  
  
**[12:59 PM] Sören:**  oh OK  
  
**[1:02 PM] Ari:**  ANYWAY  
  
**[1:04 PM] Ari:**  Maitimo is the mother-name of Maedhros from the Silmarillion.  
  
**[1:05 PM] Sören:**  :OK_hand:  
  
**[1:06 PM] Sören:**  I was under the impression it was Spanish or Portuguese considering it's Alejandro's brother and all  
  
**[1:07 PM] Qui-Gon:**  NO LOL I CAN DEFINITELY CONFIRM THAT'S NOT A SPANISH OR PORTUGUESE NAME  
  
**[1:08 PM] Sören:**  huh  
  
**[1:09 PM] Ari:**  You should read the Silm sometime. It's really interesting. Super interesting.  
  
**[1:10 PM] Sören:**  all right  
  
**[1:11 PM] Sören:**  I need something to do, so I think I'll go to the library and check it out.  
  
**[1:12 PM] Ari:**  cool beans :D  
  
  
_  
  
Sören made a quick trip to the Akureyri public library, taking out an English version of the  _Silmarillion_. It was 325 pages and Sören was a fast reader - he'd gotten through his first reading of  _The Stand_  by Stephen King in 36 hours with breaks for bathroom and food, years ago - so he expected to have it done within a couple hours.  _Light reading_ , he thought on his way home.  
  
It became apparent into the  _Ainulindalë_  and  _Valaquenta_  this was not light reading, and Sören found his eyes glazing over, having to go back and re-read. By the time he started the  _Quenta Silmarillion_ , he felt exhausted and decided he'd read as far as the end of the  _Quenta Silmarillion_  and save the rest of the book for another time.  
  
The idea of the Music was beautiful to Sören, though he found himself getting more and more irritated by the Valar as he read the  _Quenta Silmarillion_. It seemed that the Valar regarded the Elves as their playthings, something he didn't care for, and he sympathized rather a lot with Fëanor, who he felt was maligned by the narrative.  _The Valar have no right to the Silmarils. It was their own damn fault Melkor burned the Trees._  
  
Ari poked him in DM, and Sören looked up from the book.  
  
**[3:49 PM] Ari:**  How goes it?  
  
**[3:51 PM] Sören:**

**  
**

(Image: the "confused math" GIF.)

 **[3:53 PM] Sören:**  it's very... dense  
  
**[3:54 PM] Ari:**  Haha yeah if this is your first readthrough it can be a bit of a challenge.  
  
**[3:55 PM] Sören:**  it's not terrible, just dense  
  
**[3:56 PM] Sören:**  I already have a ship! :D  
  
**[3:57 PM] Ari:**  O rly?  
  
**[3:57 PM] Sören:**  it's Fëanor/Fingolfin *dies*  
  
**[4:01 PM] Ari:**  oh god  
  
**[4:03 PM] Sören:**  I know it's incest but I mean, like, people ship Sam/Dean and Fred/George all the time, right?  ~~and by "people" I mean "me"~~  
  
**[4:04 PM] Ari:**  More people would object because of Fëanor being the villain of the story.  
  
**[4:05 PM] Sören:**  see, I don't see him that way?  
  
**[4:05 PM] Sören:**  I think the Valar are the fucking villains, honestly  
  
**[4:06 PM] Sören:**  Fëanor's awesome. so much sass  
  
**[4:07 PM] Sören:**  he's all up in Melkor's face like

(Image: "Begone Thot" Bitch-Be-Gone spray.)

 

(Image: Beyonce snatching a wig.)

 **[4:08 PM] Sören:**  anyway lemme get back to the book. you mentioned Maitimo was the other name of Maedhros, right?  
  
**[4:11 PM] Ari:**  yes.  
  
  
Sören decided to take a short break and do something he hadn't done in a long time. He went back to where he kept his art supplies and took out his satchel. There was a small bag of marijuana inside, which was still fresh. He rolled a joint, and put on some downtempo music, because his nerves were acting up again for some reason. After taking a few puffs on the joint and feeling the buzz start to kick in, he flipped to where Maedhros showed up... and there was his brother  
  
_Maglor the mighty singer, whose voice was heard far over land and sea_  
  
Sören thought of Alejandro, singing. He thought of how loud Alejandro was in bed. He thought of the times where Alejandro had not raised his voice and it still  _felt_  like it did, which was always unnerving.  
  
_That's just weird._  
  
He continued to read on. He paused when he got to  _the jewel burned the hand of Maedhros in pain unbearable; and he perceived that it was as Eonwe had said, and that his right thereto had become void, and that the oath was vain. And it is told of Maglor that he could not endure the pain with which the Silmaril tormented him; and he cast it at last into the Sea..._  
  
Alejandro's scarred right hand.  _"It's an old war wound."_  
  
At the Goðafoss.  _"The last time I threw an object into a living body of water, my life didn't turn out so well."_  
  
The pointy ears that were supposedly a birth defect.  _"I was born like this."_  
  
_thereafter he wandered ever upon the shores, singing in pain and regret beside the waves._  
  
All the trips to the ocean - so many trips to Reynisfjara here in Iceland, and any time they'd traveled abroad, they had to go to the sea at least once. The longing look on Alejandro's face as he looked out at the sea, as if he were waiting to see something there. The sadness, the  _saudade_ , the recurring homesickness, loneliness, in his songs.  
  
He thought of how "Alejandro" wasn't actually Alejandro... all of the fake IDs and passports and documentation. He remembered what Dagnýr had said in chat about his genealogy research...  
  
_I imagine that if there was an ancient alien walking among us in the present day - one of Tindri's people, perhaps - they would be well aware of that time in history and go to great lengths to hide themselves, from the government, from mobs of "normal" people... .it makes sense that anybody who could serve as proof, would have figured out how to not call attention to themselves, as a matter of basic survival._  
  
All of the wondering if "Alejandro" was Force-sensitive, the way it always seemed like he could influence random playlists and the radio somehow...  
  
"OK, this is fucking crazy shit," Sören said out loud. "This is... not a thing. Let me prove this is not a thing and Alejandro is just human."  
  
He reached for his laptop and typed "Maglor" into Google. He pulled up Wikipedia.  
  
_Maglor is a Sindarin rendering of his Quenya mother name Makalaurë (or Macalaurë), which means "Gold-cleaver" — alluding to his skill with the harp, and possibly the power of his voice. (He was also known as "Strong-voiced" and "the Mighty Singer".) The meaning behind Maglor's father name, Kanafinwë (or Canafinwë), is uncertain, but probably contains the prefix kana/o (commanding) + Finwë._  
  
Sören thought of the painting he'd done years ago of "Alejandro" playing a harp, an instrument he'd never mentioned playing.  
  
"This is fucking crazy shit," Sören said to himself again.  
  
And then it hit him like a ton of bricks.  
  
_Maglor - Macalaurë - Kanafinwë - Alejandro Magalhães - Mark Lowry - Marco LaRaia - Kenneth Finn MacLeod_  
  
Sören looked up. The hair on his arms and the back of his neck was standing on end, and he'd broken into gooseflesh.  _This has been in my face and yet over my head for how long now?_  
  
In the background, "Black Balloons" by Denzel Curry was playing.  
  
_See the vibe very timid, I'm timid and very sad  
Translated my thoughts and feelings I pivot into the pad  
Rapers turn to landscapers when they use hoes  
Hoes turn to housewives when they see gold  
Ice Cube with activator when I'm aggravated  
Or decapitated when I lose my head since life is overrated  
Ten thousand feet, a thousand steps  
I let it all sink to a thousand depths  
Soon black balloons pop  
That'll be the day the pain stops  
  
Hot pink, Valentine red  
Black balloons, over my head  
Let it float, let it float, let it float, let it float  
Let it float, let it float by me  
Let it float, let it float, let it float, let it float  
Let it float, let it float by me_  
  
It felt like an indictment. Sören threw the copy of the  _Silmarillion_  across the room.  
  
  
**[4:53 PM] Ari:**  How goes it?  
  
**[4:55 PM] Sören:**

****

(Image: A cartoon dog sitting in a room on fire, drinking coffee, his face melting off, captioned "This is fine. I'm okay with the events that are unfolding currently. That's okay, things are going to be okay.")

 **[4:56 PM] Sören:**  I think I need some air  
  
**[4:56 PM] Sören:**  I'll talk to you later, like tomorrow maybe, OK?  
  
**[4:58 PM] Ari:**  OK! have fun :D  
  
  
_Fun. Right._  
  
He got up from the couch and wrote Dooku a note.  _I'm down the street. Back later._  
  
It was time to have That Talk.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören pounded on the door. A minute later, he answered. They just looked at each other for a moment, and then he silently gestured for Sören to come in.  
  
"You know why I'm here."  
  
"You're a day early."  
  
"I'm right on time." Sören's gaze held his.  
  
"I'll hold you to that. You good and calm, you're not going to threaten me?"  
  
"No. Where's Van? I don't see his car."  
  
"He's out, he'll be back late. We have some privacy to talk, I guess. Tea? Coffee?"  
  
"Something stronger, if you've got it," Sören said.  
  
There was another awkward pause. Then he departed to the kitchen and came back with whiskey and two shot glasses, one with ice. They sat down across from each other and he poured them each a shot, meeting Sören's eyes when he passed over the glass with ice in it. Sören knocked his back.  
  
"So," Sören said, "I'm here because I think I figured it out already."  
  
A quirked eyebrow but he said nothing, just calmly sipped his whiskey.  
  
"Your name is Maglor. Aka Macalaurë. Aka Kanyefinwë."  
  
He cringed hard. "I think you mean Kanafinwë."  
  
Sören facepalmed. "Jesus." He had a gigglefit at his slip, and the annoyed look he was given made him giggle more, and then he tried to compose himself. He remembered the intense pain he was in after their breakup, and that was all he needed for steel, going from silly to stern right away. "Anyway. Am I correct?"  
  
"...You are."  
  
That was precisely the answer Sören had not wanted to hear.


	30. The Truth

**The Truth**

 

Sören swallowed hard, and blinked slowly.  
  
Maglor leaned back. "You see now why I wanted you to be calm before we could have this conversation."  
  
Sören nodded. "I... I'm sorry about the other day, and the gun -"  
  
Maglor waved his hand. "Sören, considering what you've been through, it was probably terrifying to find the documents you found, and I can't blame you for going into fight-or-flight mode. If our situation was reversed, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same thing."  
  
"Nico and I actually had been kind of wondering..." Sören laughed aloud at the absurdity of it. "If you and Van were somehow in the mafia, or a cartel, or even spies. So when I found those documents... I felt like my life was in immediate danger."  
  
"That was not an invalid assumption."  
  
"Though thinking about it some more, you guys as spies... you're both too exotic-looking, and spies need to blend in some."  
  
"We're a bit conspicuous for that, yes."  
  
"But as silly as it was to guess that maybe you're spies..." Sören shook his head. "This is far worse. I mean, you're  _a fictional character_. You're an Elf -"  
  
"I prefer the word  _Quendi_ , but yes, believe me, nobody is more aware of the insanity of my existence than I am." Maglor gave a small, rueful smile. "There are days when I question my own sanity."  
  
Sören sighed.  
  
"So, Sören, I have to ask... how did you figure it out, finally?"  
  
"I read the  _Silmarillion_. Well, I read some of it. It was my first reading - my cousin Ari recommended it to me -"  
  
"Ari."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"He knows something."  
  
"I guess."  
  
"No." Maglor shook his head. "You don't guess. Ari is like you, isn't he?"  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I think we need more whiskey." Maglor got up, and came back with the entire bottle. He poured himself another shot glass, and then, before Sören could reach for the bottle to pour his, he reached across the coffee table and grabbed Sören's wrists. "Go on," he said, "pour yourself another glass."  
  
"What..." Sören was startled, alarmed - his secret had been exposed somehow - and there was the frisson of arousal, with Maglor's hands restraining him.  _Fuck, I still want him._  
  
Maglor's eyes met his. "Sören, now is not the time to play dumb with me, when we're laying all our cards on the table. I'm not the only one who was hiding something for five years, so  _pour yourself another glass._ "  
  
The edge in his voice only heightened Sören's arousal. His cheeks flushed, and he looked away. Then he closed his eyes, and he used the Force to maneuver the whiskey bottle. He opened his eyes and watched the bottle hover in the air just above the shot glass, pouring neatly. When his glass was full, Sören used the Force to set the bottle back onto the table, and Maglor let go of his wrists.  
  
"How did you know...?" Sören's eyes widened. "How  _long_  have you known?"  
  
"Not long." Maglor looked at the shot glass, then back at Sören. "Quite recently. When Auli ran away, I saw you... pull him to you."  
  
Sören groaned. "I was hoping you hadn't seen that."  
  
"Well, I did. I've got to hand it to you,  _that_  was possibly a more difficult thing to hide than my identity. I can cover mine with a paper trail and some stories, but you... I imagine it must have been difficult, with your power, to contain it as tightly as you did."  
  
Sören nodded. "Very much so."  
  
"I'm guessing you're not the only one in your family with that gift."  
  
"No. Ari's is milder - if he tried to do what I did just now he'd get a headache and probably not be able to do it again for the rest of the night. But he can do some things, and his intuition is strong." Sören frowned. Looking back on it, it did seem like Ari had figured it out before he did. "He didn't come right out and say he knew, but..."  
  
"But."  
  
Sören sipped his whiskey, this time not knocking it all back right away. "So now we're even, I guess."  
  
"Not really. Not by a long shot. I told you I would tell you the full truth, and it's a lot. You probably have questions, and I am obligated to answer them, with our history being what it is."  
  
Sören frowned. "You told me that you would be potentially endangering me by telling me any of this."  
  
"Yes. First and foremost, it will change your very perception of reality. Not everyone is in a place where they can handle that, psychologically, not even the most well-adjusted people, and you, my dear, have never been particularly well-adjusted. I don't really  _like_  shattering everything you think you know about the world you live in."  
  
"Do I get a blue pill and a red pill?"  
  
"So this is part of the problem, Sören. You lost the blue pill option once I started teaching at your studio, and more people than just you and Nicolae were interacting with me. This is some of why I was initially reluctant to teach there - that and I still don't feel I'm the best at teaching."  
  
"Your students would say otherwise -"  
  
"Well, I still feel awkward. But... anyway." Maglor sighed. "If it had just been you and Nicolae, and not a bunch of students as well, and you found out about this and it was... too much. I would have given you the choice to erase it from your memory. The caveat being that it would also erase your memory of having ever met me at all, having ever been with me. That presents its own set of problems - losing five years of time isn't a recipe for sanity, and false memories put there in its place don't tend to hold up very well as the years go on. Not to mention that it's ethically dubious. It's a form of mind rape. It's not something I'm really OK with doing. But since it's not just one or two people whose memories would need to be adjusted... it's not an option for you. You are going to have to live with this information, for better or for worse."  
  
Sören nodded. "I think that, given what I can do..." He gestured with the Force to move his shot glass from the coffee table, to his hand. "I'm in a better position than most to handle this information without it breaking my brain  _that_  much."  
  
"I certainly hope so, for your sake."  
  
"You're very sure you didn't see this until recently? It didn't somehow slip when we were together?" How it hurt to say those words,  _when we were together._  
  
"I'm quite sure. But..." Their eyes met again, and held. "I have to wonder if on some level I knew  _subconsciously_ that you had some kind of power. I knew, at least, you weren't like everyone else. I just didn't know how deeply it ran. I suppose it may have been one of the things that draws - drew me to you."  
  
Maglor had corrected himself, but Sören caught the slip, and his heart beat faster. If he were a dog, his tail would be wagging in excitement.  _You're still drawn to me?_  And then slapping himself in the face internally.  _This man was lying to you every day of your life for_  five years.  _Why in the hell do you want to be with him again?_  
  
"So that was one of the reasons why I didn't tell you... even if I thought I would have been believed, and I had no guarantee of that at all, especially with your brother being a scientist -"  
  
"Even though my brother is one of the few in the scientific community who seriously examines the possibility of alien visitation."  
  
"Perhaps  _especially_  with that, but I'm getting ahead of myself there." Maglor sipped his whiskey and went on. "If I had just told you the truth, in 2009, would you have believed me? Even after having seen my ears?"  
  
"Probably not, no."  
  
"There are ways I could have  _proven_  it to you, but not without causing the kind of psychological disruption that I, again, didn't know if you'd be able to handle, and didn't want to take the risk."  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
"Another reason is... potentially endangering you in a non-psychological way. I am very old, Sören. I don't age."  
  
"How old are we talking about here?"  
  
Maglor put his glass of whiskey down, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Honestly, I lost count after ten thousand or so."  
  
" _What._ "  
  
"Let me think..." He closed his eyes for a moment, and Sören heard him counting under his breath - or assumed it was counting, but it was in a language that wasn't English, and then Maglor's eyes opened and he said, "I'm approximately twenty two thousand years old, give or take."  
  
Sören almost choked on his whiskey. It burned. Maglor got up, and came back with water. He sat back down, giving Sören a wary look. Sören matched it.  
  
"Now I feel like you're taking the piss," Sören said.  
  
"I'm not. I wish I were."  
  
"That's... you're quite well-preserved."  
  
"Yes. I am." Maglor smiled. Then he stopped smiling. "And that's... a liability. It's why I move around as much as I do."  
  
"Shit."  
  
"Yes. 'Shit'. My average shelf life of being able to stay anywhere without arousing too much suspicion is maybe ten to fifteen years, though after the incident it's been a bit less than that."  
  
"The... incident."  
  
"I came to Connecticut from England in the 1600s, and I stayed in what would become the United States for a little over three centuries, though I moved around from state to state. I fought in the Revolution, the Civil War on behalf of the Yankees, both World Wars. I avoided Vietnam. Anyway, I may have called attention to myself in World War Two, and I was finally picked up in the 1970s. Some... experiments were done." Maglor shuddered; across their bond Sören saw the mental image of needles, electric shocks, confinement. Finally escaping, though he had to fight his way out, using super-human strength. "I sent them a message, afterward. I threatened to go public about what had been done to me by the US government, and prove to a large crowd of people that I'm non-human and effectively immortal, if I was not left alone. Of course, they can still overpower me if they use greater numbers, and I still look over my shoulder because I don't trust them, especially post 9/11. I try not to stay someplace more than seven years, anymore. My stay in Alaska was the first time I'd lived in the States again since the 70s. Er, the 1970s." Maglor downed his glass.  
  
"Why did you even go back, considering it would probably be more dangerous for you there than anyplace else?"  
  
"I ask myself the same question. It seems like a suicidal move, doesn't it. A man with nothing else left to lose." Their eyes met again.  
  
Sören felt it - the utter desolation after Maglor left him. It hadn't just been Sören who had suffered in that time.  
  
Sören let out a sharp exhale.  
  
"But, yes. My lack of aging necessitates having to change locations when I can no longer plausibly pretend to be of a certain age. And the kind of steps I have to take to change locations, identities... it's put me in touch with some dangerous people. Dangerous people who are well-paid for their silence."  
  
"And you always seemed rather well off, able to afford such help."  
  
"Living as long as I have, it's given me a unique opportunity to accumulate wealth. I've parted with a few priceless items - some time ago I sold an original Stradivarius, as one example - and I have a lot of gold, tucked away in safe deposit boxes in banks around the world. I've made investments in the right places, using handlers. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have both seen my money, and I've seen quite a lot of theirs. Elon Musk has proved to be another solid investment, though he wouldn't know me from Adam."  
  
Sören's jaw dropped.  
  
Maglor nodded. "So, I've had some help with flying under the radar. But I can't be completely invisible, so I have to be smart about what others  _do_  see. I keep my identification between early-mid thirties to early forties because I don't  _act_  like someone in their twenties. But it's still hard to pretend to be someone even  _your_  age - millennials are not Gen Xers are not baby boomers - and it's going to be harder when the kids these days turn thirty and I have to pretend I know who any of these auto-tuned pop stars are, or grew up playing Pokemon or whatever the Hells they're playing now. It was never easy, but it didn't seem so difficult to pretend to be in my thirties a couple decades ago."  
  
"That's tough."  
  
"Very much so. It's tough enough for one person. The more people who know, the more liability, the more risk there is of being discovered. The more potential there is of whoever knows, to themselves be intercepted by a government agency."  
  
Just then, there was a knock on the door. Sören jumped in his seat, and his heart began pounding. He and Maglor exchanged a panicked look, and then Sören probed with the Force and felt Dooku's presence on the other side of the door. He breathed a small sigh of relief. Maglor got up and opened the door.  
  
"Nicolae. Hello," Maglor said.  
  
"Hello. My husband left me a note saying he was here... there you are."  
  
"Here I am," Sören said, nodding.  
  
"Please come in," Maglor said. "Why don't the two of you take the couch and I'll sit where Sören is sitting?"  
  
They did that, and Dooku noticed the whiskey bottle. Maglor got up and came back with a third shot glass, and then Sören casually used the Force to lift the bottle from the table and poured Dooku a glass. Dooku spluttered.  
  
"You... you told him."  
  
"I told him, because he told me... well..." Sören gestured to Maglor.  
  
"Have you ever read JRR Tolkien's works?" Maglor asked.  
  
"...Yes." Dooku's eyebrows went up.  
  
"How extensively. Just the Lord of the Rings trilogy..."  
  
"I've read that, the Hobbit, and the Silmarillion, but it was all rather a long time ago. How is this relevant?"  
  
"I am Maglor, son of Fëanor."  
  
Dooku snorted. "Nice try."  
  
Maglor sighed.  
  
Sören gave Dooku a look. "Do you actually  _sense_  that he's lying?"  
  
"He keeps himself shielded." Dooku looked directly at Maglor.  
  
"So you..." Maglor looked at Dooku, then at Sören, then back at Dooku. "It's not just Sören who's gifted."  
  
Dooku used the Force to refill Sören's glass of whiskey.  
  
"This gets stranger all the time." Maglor took a sip. "Anyway, like I said..."  
  
"I know what you said." Dooku shook his head. "I realize my husband is a bit... innocent and naive, but do you honestly expect me to believe..."  
  
Maglor tucked his hair behind his ears, revealing the points. He held out the palm of his right hand to Dooku, the hand burned, a geometric scar in the palm.  
  
"That still doesn't mean anything. You could have had plastic surgery -"  
  
"Why in the Hells would I want to have plastic surgery to do two things that would call attention to myself, when surely you must realize I've been trying to keep a low profile? Moving around? Not wanting pictures taken of myself? That sort of thing?"  
  
Dooku snorted again. "I don't know, but claiming to be a fictional character..."  
  
"All right, Mister Hard Sell." Maglor got up. He turned off the lights in the living room, and then he approached the couch and stood there before them. "Look at me," he said.  
  
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then he opened his eyes. His hair fell all the way down to his thighs, his complexion was even more flawless, his skin pale, and he glowed silver in the darkness of the room, like he was made of starlight. The usual grey of his eyes was now like labradorite.  
  
The shot glass dropped from Dooku's hand and whiskey spilled everywhere. Dooku reflexively made the sign of the Cross, a holdover from his Orthodox upbringing. " _Tatăl nostru Care ești în ceruri, sfințească-se numele Tău..._ "  
  
Sören elbowed him, and Dooku stopped.   
  
Sören heard an inhuman noise, and realized he was the one making it, and he started sobbing, not able to help it. "You," he tried to make words, and just kept babbling. "You.  _You._ "  
  
When Maglor spoke then, it was like several voices combined as one voice. " _Do you believe me now._ "  
  
"You." Sören was still babbling, between sobs. He felt like he couldn't breathe. For the first time in his life, he could understand the myths of people trembling with awe in the presence of their gods. "You..."  
  
Dooku was just staring open-mouthed, barely breathing.  
  
Maglor calmly turned on the light. He got a towel for Dooku to clean up the spilled whiskey. His hair continued to flood to his thighs, and he was paler than usual, but he stopped glowing. A minute later, his hair was back to its usual length, the middle of his back, and his complexion had returned to a slight touch of olive. His eyes looked human again.  
  
"That..." Dooku took a few deep breaths. "You couldn't fake that."  
  
"No." Maglor picked up his shot glass and raised it.  
  
The next few minutes passed in silence. Finally Dooku broke the silence and asked, "What should we call you?"  
  
"If we're out in public, I'd prefer that you continue to call me Alejandro, for the sake of keeping things as close to normal as possible. I explained to Sören just before you got here that I am more or less hiding in plain sight, as I had a run-in with the United States government approximately forty years ago that I don't care to repeat. I go to some lengths to protect myself, and assumed names are part of that." Maglor sat back. "Privately though, when it's just us, I don't really care. Whatever you're most comfortable with."  
  
"I'm most comfortable with what you'd  _prefer_ ," Dooku said. "I imagine it's been a long time since anyone has called you by your actual name, and if it would be a comfort to you to hear it..."  
  
"...I suppose it would." Maglor swirled the whiskey around in his glass.  
  
"Macalaurë."  
  
Maglor's eyes met Dooku's. The name was almost a caress, in that deep velvet voice. Sören's hair stood on end, and he realized it wasn't just how sexy it sounded in Dooku's voice, but he got the distinct sense he'd heard it before, though he couldn't imagine where.  
  
"Maglor," Sören said, softly, "is there anyone around who knows you by your real name?"  
  
"Van does. I believe there's one other person around who also knows, though I haven't seen him in ages."  
  
"Who would that be?"  
  
"You would know him as Gandalf."  
  
Sören let out a squeak. "Gandalf? He's  _real?_ " At the look Maglor gave him, Sören's voice dropped an octave. "I mean, of course he's real. But... Gandalf? You know him, really?"  
  
"He was my teacher. Yes, I know him." Maglor gave a sad nostalgic smile. "From the last time I saw him, which was quite some time ago, he's still teaching. College professor somewhere."  
  
"Huh."  
  
Maglor finished his drink. "I know this has been a bit of a bombshell, so I'm going to end this particular discussion here for tonight. We can talk more about it later, but I think you both need some time to digest what you know so far."  
  
Sören was disappointed and relieved at the same time. "All right."  
  
Dooku nodded. "I was going to take Sören out to dinner but I think we're probably not in the mood to deal with the public this evening, after all of that. But, would you like to have dinner with us?"  
  
"Sure, thank you for offering. Do you have any backup plans?"  
  
Dooku's face fell. "I'd need to get groceries in town and I'm not even feeling like going to the store, to be honest."  
  
"I'm in the same predicament, I was going to run to the store myself this evening and now I'm just... drained."  
  
"Should we order pizza?" Sören asked.  
  
"You place the order, I'll pay," Maglor said, nodding.  
  
Auli chose that moment to finally come out, slowly. Maglor held his arms open and Auli's pace quickened to a trot, tongue lolling, tail wagging, as he hopped up on the ancient elf and began to lick his face. "I see you're finally up from your nap," Maglor cooed at the dog, stroking him. "Did you have a good sleepy? Did you?"  
  
Sören giggled - he would never get over how adorable Maglor was with the sheepdog. Maglor smiled back at him, and Sören's breath caught.  _Dammit, why do you have to be so attractive._  
  
Sören called for pizza delivery, and then Dooku asked, "Shall we watch something while we wait?"  
  
Maglor joined them on the couch, with Sören seated between them, and they watched  _Metalocalypse_. It seemed surreal, to be sitting next to a twenty-two-thousand-year-old elf who liked a cartoon about an over-the-top metal band, but then, things had always been surreal in Sören's life.  _That's the one thing I_  can  _count on: things will always be weird._  
  
The pizza arrived, and Auli begged. Maglor gave him dog treats, and Auli stopped begging. They continued to watch  _Metalocalypse_  as they ate the pizza, and then once they had their fill, they watched a few more episodes.  
  
Then Auli whined, and Maglor looked at the time. "He needs to go for a walk," Maglor said.  
  
Sören and Dooku accompanied Maglor on the walk. What Dooku had said earlier about the weather forecast was indeed accurate - it hadn't started to rain yet, but it was misty, the slightest drizzle. The humidity made Sören's hair curl even more, and it also made him start to sweat. He felt gross and disgusting by the time the walk was over and the three lingered on the steps of the cabin, but there was only kindness in Maglor's eyes, none of the  _filthy human_  attitude that Sören had half-expected him to have.  
  
Kindness and... longing?  _Is that wishful thinking?_  
  
Dooku broke the awkward silence with a clear of his throat. "Thank you for telling us...  _showing us_... the truth."  
  
Maglor nodded. "There's more to tell, but... like I said, you've had enough for tonight."  
  
Dooku looked at Sören, then at Maglor. "Well, the two of you have more of a history, so tomorrow, Sören, perhaps you should spend some time with Maglor and get caught up further." He gave Sören a small, subtle nudge as if to say  _you know what I mean_.  
  
_God, Nico,_  Sören spoke into his mind.  _Still not ready for that._  
  
Dooku sighed.  
  
"Tomorrow afternoon OK? Like two thereabouts?" Sören asked.  
  
"That works for me." Maglor nodded.  
  
"OK. Have a good evening."  
  
"You too." Maglor lingered, and Sören looked over his shoulder before stepping in the cabin. Maglor was still there, watching them, and for a moment Sören had the urge to grab him and shove him inside with them, screaming  _this is where you belong, you stubborn arse._  But he didn't.   
  
Maglor raised a hand, and Sören waved back, before Dooku closed the door behind them.  
  
  
_  
  
_Sunday_  
  
Sören was woken up to the sound of rain, and then five minutes later, " _Alejandro, Alejandro, Ale-Ale-Alejandro -_ "  
  
Sören cringed.  _I'm going to have to get him a different ringtone._  He reached for the phone with his Force. "Hello," he croaked out.  
  
"It's really coming down out there, you want me to drive over to pick you up at two?"  
  
Sören sat up. His head started throbbing and he knew he'd had too much to drink last night. "I'm not going to melt in the rain, even if I have an accused witch in my family tree."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Never mind." He looked out the window and it was indeed quite a downpour; he looked at the time and it was already past one o'clock. His head throbbed again. "You can go ahead and drive over. Actually if you want to make it sooner than two, I can be ready in about fifteen minutes."  
  
"OK, see you then."  
  
Sören quickly washed up, got changed, and hugged and kissed Dooku on his way out. Maglor drove up in the Jaguar, and Sören hopped through puddles to climb in. The windshield wipers were going, and Sören felt nostalgic all of a sudden.  
  
"Remember the days we would just go for a drive in the rain?"  
  
Maglor nodded. "Where do you want to go?"  
  
"Somewhere we can sit and talk for awhile, I guess."  
  
"OK, I'll think of something. In the meantime..." He handed Sören a thermos of iced coffee. "Figured you needed this, since I could tell from your voice you were still waking up."  
  
"I didn't expect to sleep in so late. Of course, I'm hungover as fuck, too." Sören winced, his head pounding.  
  
"The caffeine should help."  
  
Maglor started to drive out of the village. Sören snickered into his coffee, and Maglor raised an eyebrow. "What?"  
  
"Do Elves even get hangovers?"  
  
Maglor gave a guilty grin. "I can attest to the fact that Elves can and do get hangovers, yes."  
  
"Sounds like there's some stories there."  
  
"I have a lot of stories, Sören." His grin became a frown. "Not all of them are pleasant."  
  
The Cure was playing softly on the car stereo. Maglor turned it up as they got on the road. For a few minutes they drove quietly, Sören nursing his coffee, Maglor deep in thought.  
  
Then Sören gathered some of his thoughts and broke the silence. "What's the deal with Tolkien? How did he know about you?"  
  
"I came to see him, twice. Once when he was younger, and once when he was an old man. He had a fever both times, so I think he thought I was a fever dream, a part of his imagination. But it captivated him enough for what I told him to become a bit of an obsession."  
  
"Why did you see him in particular, and why did you see him at all?"  
  
"Our paths crossed in World War One, when the Americans fought alongside the Brits, and usually when a mortal gets my notice it means there's something unusual about them. Upon doing some research later on, he seemed like the best qualified person to record the history of where I come from, but that first meeting was pure intuition."  
  
"I still can't get over the fact you were in both World Wars." Sören's eyebrows raised. "How many Nazis did you kill?"  
  
"A lot. I lost count."  
  
"That is so fucking badass. I'm so proud of you."  
  
Maglor laughed. Then he said, softly, "Even for a noble cause, war is hell, Sören. Never forget that."  
  
Another silence fell over them, and Sören saw they were driving in the direction of the Goðafoss.  
  
Maglor spoke again a few minutes later, as The Cure playlist switched to Depeche Mode. "As far as why I did it in the first place... a few reasons."  
  
"A few."  
  
"For one, I am, as far as I know, the last of my kind. I have kept in occasional touch with Gandalf - so occasional I could not tell you what he's doing right now, though I could probably find out where he is if I was really motivated. Gandalf is not  _Quendi_ , though - I suppose an honorary one, but not quite the same. Anyway... as the last of my kind, the memory of my people, and my family in particular, dies with me. I am immortal in the sense that I don't age, and I am hard to kill, but I  _can_  be killed - and I came close to it in the 1970s thanks to the US government." He shuddered, and Sören did too, seeing the flash of images across his mind's eye again, the torture of the experiments, the pain, the  _fear_...  
  
"God, Maglor." Sören instinctively reached out to take his bad hand, lovingly stroking the scars, and squeezed. Maglor looked at him and squeezed back; the haunted look in his eyes made Sören want to throw his arms around him and hold him tight and never let him go, but Maglor was driving.  
  
"World War One was also a series of close calls, and was when I began thinking that there should be a record on hand. And as coincidence would have it or not have it, that was when I met Tolkien."  
  
"But the stories are... well, they're seen as fictional here. Anyone who's read the Silm would think you're just a fictional character, not real."  
  
"That was also part of my reasoning, actually." At Sören's surprised look, Maglor nodded. "It was a way to keep the history alive, somehow, without also exposing myself. If anything, I thought it would be easier to hide, if the world just thought of me and my people as fictional. The 1970s was when I was intercepted by the American government, but I'd had a few near-incidents before that. I was almost executed for 'witchcraft' in Wethersfield, Connecticut, in the 1600s. I was almost burned a few centuries before that, in Europe, when people were dying of the plague and I was not. When society began its march towards industrialism in the 19th century, I saw the writing on the wall and knew it was going to get harder to hide as the world got smaller. Post 9/11, it's become even harder. I'm not a fan of the Tolkien films but I still found myself rather relieved that they were made, as it reinforces the public perception that this is just fiction."  
  
There was more silence, and they reached the Goðafoss. Maglor turned off the engine, but kept the stereo and windshield wipers going. They sat in the car and watched the falls, dramatic in the mist and pouring rain, the mournful dark sky.  
  
"So..." Sören swallowed hard. "How much of his work is true, and how much is fiction?"  
  
"Quite a lot of it is true."  
  
Sören looked at him, and Maglor looked back.  
  
"And that..." Maglor sighed. "Is another reason why I didn't tell you, couldn't tell you, back then. Even if you'd believed me... well... you've read the Silmarillion. I am a murderer. I am a kinslayer."  
  
A long pause. "What I'm about to tell you, only one other person knows," Sören said.  
  
Maglor raised an eyebrow.  
  
"When I was twenty-two... some months after my suicide attempt... my sister was still living in Akureyri. I got an emergency phone call from her that my uncle Einar was on a bender and had threatened to kill her when he came back. I drove up from Reykjavik, just in time for him to come back from his bender and..." Sören closed his eyes, remembering. "That thing I can do... Nico calls it using the Force... I killed Einar without touching him. Just reached out and choked him to death with my mind. The official coroner's report was a heart attack. But it was me." Sören opened his eyes, his gaze locked with Maglor's. "I, too, am a kinslayer."  
  
"It's different. You were justified in what you did."  
  
"Maglor... when I was reading the Silmarillion, well... my cousin was trying to get me to liveblog my reactions, and he said that your father is regarded as the villain of the story. I can see how that would be public perception, and you would be painted as a villain also. But honestly, when I was reading it... you and your family were wronged by the Valar, and punished for  _their_  bullshit, what should have been  _their_  mess to clean. It seems that the Valar were jealous of the Noldor, they wanted you to be their submissive, docile little playthings, and instead the creation was on its way to surpassing the creators... and instead of them being good, loving parents and nurturing that, fostering it, being proud of you, being proud that they'd done such a good job of making you that of course this would be your fate... they were more vain and arrogant than they ever accused your people of being."  
  
" _Hells_ , Sören. You sound like my father, and it's not the first time you've reminded me of him." Across their bond, Sören heard  _You are, too often, like my father all over again._  
  
"I sympathize with him, perhaps as one artist to another. And I  _know_  you - you would not have sworn the Oath you did unless you had a very damn good reason for doing so. The Silmarils weren't just 'some jewels', and it wasn't just that they contained the light of the Two Trees. They were more than that, weren't they?" In his mind's eye, Sören could see them,  _feel_  them. "They had a piece of your father's soul."  
  
" _How did you know that._  That isn't in the canon, but it's true."  
  
"I just know things, sometimes." Sören nodded. "So the severity of the Oath you swore... was because of the severity of what was at stake. I'm not going to say that things like kinslaying are great and honorable, I'm not going to make excuses for what happened... but you had a lot to lose. Justifiable, perhaps not, but understandable?  _Yes._ "  
  
Maglor took a deep breath. He took a few more deep breaths, and Sören could see that he was starting to cry, silently. Sören finally gave in to his urge to reach out and hold him, and Maglor assented to the hug, leaning on Sören, shaking as Sören stroked his hair.  
  
"And whatever you did, however much blood is on your hands... it does not deserve being punished as you have been. Twenty-two thousand years? How many of them have you been wandering the Earth, alone?"  
  
A sob. "Too many."  
  
Sören's arms tightened around him.  
  
They held each other for awhile, and finally Maglor pulled away, a bit reluctantly. They resumed watching the rain and the falls.  
  
"You're very sure you're the last of your kind?"  
  
"Reasonably sure. I'll never say 100% and be made a fool later, but I've wandered the world several times over and... even if one is adept at hiding, my people have a way of recognizing each other." Maglor leaned back in his chair, and rubbed his face. "For some time, I did hope, rather foolishly, that I'd find other  _Quendi_. One in particular."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I have a son," Maglor said, turning to face Sören.  
  
"I was going to ask, at some point, if you'd ever -"  
  
"Yes." Maglor nodded. "The circumstances of his begetting were unfortunate, and his existence was kept from me for some time. But he did, finally, establish contact with me, when he was grown."  
  
"When you say unfortunate, you mean..."  
  
A flash of mental images Sören never wanted, and through them, the feeling of  _madness_. Maglor was not himself then, it was almost as if he had been possessed. He didn't enjoy it. It had, indeed, been an act of attempted self-destruction for him, but it hadn't killed him. He felt the  _horror_  afterwards, the self-hatred -  
  
As quickly as they had come, they had gone.  
  
"You must hate me now," Maglor said, softly. "After what you'd been through."  
  
"There is a difference between you and Justin. I saw it, just now. I  _felt_  it."  
  
Maglor hung his head. "She forgave me. She told me that even as it was happening, she knew it wasn't  _me._ " He showed Sören that as well. "I didn't feel, still don't feel, that I deserve her forgiveness, or any forgiveness at all. It was a very long time ago - over ten thousand years ago, longer - and the only time that had ever happened, but it shouldn't have happened. Period. And... I took another oath, one that didn't make it to the books. It was... to atone for what I'd done. I kill rapists, if they cross my path. Even if you weren't as dear to me as you are, I would have killed him. But..."  
  
Sören took Maglor's chin in his hand, and tilted his face to make Maglor look at him. He stroked Maglor's face. "I don't hate you. It is as I told you, you've been punished enough. Far more severely than is justified."  
  
Maglor took Sören's hand, and kissed it. "You have always had a kind heart."  
  
Sören's heart skipped a beat again. He couldn't believe he was still reacting like this to him, still  _longing_ , even with what he knew now.  _You love a rapist. A murderer.  
  
...I love a broken man, who is more than the sum of those parts. Ancient parts, the debt of which he has more than paid for._  
  
Well, maybe the murder wasn't so ancient, thinking of Justin. But it seemed that any bloodshed Maglor had caused within the last few centuries was either in self-defense or as a public service, against worse predators.  
  
"So your son," Sören said, getting back to what Maglor was saying.  
  
"My son disappeared some time after the death of his lover. I presumed he'd come here, to this world, but..." Maglor sighed. "Our paths have never crossed. I gave up hope of seeing him again centuries ago."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"So am I."  
  
More silence passed between them. Then Sören said, "When we... had our first time, years ago, I could sense that it had been a long time for you. It was a really long time, wasn't it?"  
  
Maglor sighed. "Very."  
  
"How long, if you don't mind me asking...?"  
  
"Ancient Rome."  
  
" _What._ "  
  
Maglor nodded.  
  
"That..." Sören blinked. "No,  _really?_ "  
  
"Really."  
  
"I would have thought at most, a century or two. But that's..."  
  
"So..." Maglor folded his arms, and looked down, then he looked back at the rain. "There was a gladiator, a Celt, who was being mistreated by his owner. I bought him, though I was never comfortable with the buying and selling of thralls, but that was what you did, back then."  
  
"When in Rome."  
  
"When in Rome." A small, rueful smile. Maglor went on. "He was under no obligation to me, but he was a good man - you remind me a bit of him, right down to his looks - and I came to care for him, and he cared for me. I gave him his freedom, and he chose to stay with me. And. Well."  
  
"When in Rome."  
  
Maglor laughed softly. "When in Rome."  
  
"So..."  
  
"So, we were... companions. We were intimate. A plague came to Rome, and he took fever and died. It was slow, agonizing. I did what I could, but it wasn't enough. And watching him suffer, like he did..." Maglor shuddered. "I remember it quite vividly."  
  
"God, I'm sorry."  
  
"I'd had a few mortal partners in the time before that - mostly men, a couple of women - and it was always the same. They died. This was the last time I was able to handle death, the dying. I kept to myself after that. I had friends, here and there, a man is not an island, but it always hurt to get attached to such frail, short-lived beings, or know that in due time I'd have to move on to protect myself, and leave them behind. And then you came along, and despite my better judgment, I couldn't resist you, Sören."  
  
Sören swallowed hard.  
  
"I still..." Maglor closed his eyes. "Can't resist you." He opened his eyes. "I wish I could quit you."  
  
"Dear Diary, today, a twenty-two-thousand-year-old Elf quoted  _Brokeback Mountain_  to me. What is my life."  
  
Maglor laughed aloud, and Sören laughed too, at the absurdity of it.  
  
Then they stopped laughing, sober again. Sören watched the rain some more, and then he said, "That arranged marriage story you told me, to break up with me... that was a load of shit, wasn't it."  
  
"It was, and I'm sorry."  
  
Sören closed his eyes. The tears came, gently at first, then spasming, wracking sobs. A feeling of relief, but also, the  _despair_  of having been abandoned so cruelly, and the new understanding of the desolation Maglor felt when he let him go.  
  
Maglor said, "When we were in Rio and you almost drowned, it terrified me. And then when we came back to Iceland and you had walking pneumonia... I had visions of you dying. More than anyone else in this world who I let into my life, took into my bed, I loved you, above and beyond what I'd felt for others. And the thought of watching you suffer was  _unbearable_  to me. And it was inevitable, that I would have to leave in a few years anyway. It would have been safer for you to not come with me. So I had to end it. I didn't  _want_  to. I had a few options for how to do it, and I chose what I perceived, at that time, to be the quickest and cleanest option. Faking my own death was a possibility, but one that would have required a bit of help to pull off, and I had a feeling that if you thought I was dead, you would..." He didn't finish that sentence, and he didn't need to. Sören saw the mental images of his fear that he would commit suicide.  
  
"So yes, I lied to you, Sören, and I felt terrible - still feel terrible - about it."  
  
Sören shrugged. The pain he was in was giving him a bit of an edge now, after his compassion and understanding with the earlier confessions. "What's one more lie, really. You lied to me so much over the five years we were together... our entire relationship was a lie."  
  
"No."  
  
Their eyes met, and Sören gave Maglor a withering look. The pain on Maglor's face made him want to cry again.  
  
"Sören. This, too, I need to explain."  
  
"Yes, why don't you explain how you fucking lied to me every day for five years,  _Alejandro_?"  
  
"Well, we'll start with that. You must have noticed the names on my fake IDs. Kenneth Finn MacLeod - close to Kanafinwë Macalaurë. Mark Lowry, Marco LaRaia - close enough to Macalaurë. Alejandro Magalhães... the surname is close enough to Macalaurë, with the additional bonus that Magalhães is usually translated 'Magellan', for the seafaring explorer. The name Alejandro is the Spanish form of Alexander, 'defender of Men'." Maglor frowned. "The fabrications that I have crafted to hide in society... it's easier to maintain when it's mostly crafted from the truth. You will notice, if you study our history, that very little of what I told you was an outright lie. I told you I was born with these ears. I told you my brother killed himself, that my brothers were dead. I told you I was brought up in a culture that sees same-sex attraction as immoral; you filled in the blanks about it being because of Catholicism and I didn't correct you, but I wasn't the one to say it, either. And no, I didn't bother to correct you when you assumed I came from a dangerous family, one that had possibly been involved in illegal activity or a military junta, but even that,  _from a certain point of view_ , is not wrong. The only outright lying that I'd ever done to you is what I am, how old I am, my name, where I'm from - and the Brazilian people, the Portuguese culture and language, it's the home of my heart in the world of Men, if not necessarily where I'm from originally. And of course, the other outright lie was the circumstances of why I was leaving."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. He wanted to scream. He hated that Maglor was right.  
  
"Our relationship was not a lie, Sören. My feelings for you were never a lie."  
  
Sören closed his eyes. The tears came again.  
  
"I don't expect, or deserve, your trust after what I  _did_  hide from you, and the way I broke your heart, but I hope you'll understand why."  
  
"You know what really shits me about this?" Sören choked out through his tears.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"So you know Nico and I broke up and got back together, in the first half of 2018."  
  
"I'm aware of that, yes."  
  
Sören grit his teeth. "You broke up with me because you didn't want to watch me get older, more frail, sicken and die... he broke up with me because he's old and he didn't want me to watch him get frail, sicken and die... you both broke up with me for the same fucking reason, in reverse. And you know what? To some extent, I get it. I was in med school... I didn't deal well with watching my patients die...  _feeling_  it, in the Force. I tried to kill myself over it. But you also know what? Both my parents died by or before the time they were thirty years old. I've already outlived them. The defining moment that shaped my entire childhood, shaped my entire fucking life, was finding my mother's dead body when I was six fucking years old. I told Nico, when we got back together, that I was, and am, aware of our age difference, and his life expectancy... and for all we know, I could be the one to go first. And you - you might not be as frail and mortal as I am, but you said yourself you can die. For all I fucking know,  _you_  could die before me. I know it hurts, when you've seen people die over and over again, people you care about, not wanting to put yourself through that yet another time. But was it worth it to be alone for two thousand years? I could feel how  _hungry_  you were when I touched you. All we've got, is now, and when you see your own mother die at age six, you learn that you need to make now as full, as rich, as  _alive_  as you possibly can. Is it really a life, when you're not letting yourself make connections anymore because of how... ephemeral and transient... those connections are, speculating about a future that may not even come to pass the way you think it will? Or are you just existing? If you were hurting anywhere near as much as I was when we broke up, and I was hurting a lot, it was like a piece of my soul  _died_ , I ask you,  _is that worth it_?"  
  
Maglor was crying now, too.  
  
"I'm not as old as you, so maybe I'm in the wrong for saying this, but if our situations were reversed... I'd rather have thirty, forty, fifty, sixty years with someone, than five years and having to walk away and spend another century or ten  _alone_ , not letting myself take comfort where I can find it. I'm already going through something like that now. Nico thinks about his mortality a lot. And you know what? I think about it too. I've accepted the fact that I only have another twenty years with him  _at most_ , maybe not even that, and yes, it is going to hurt when he does eventually pass on, whenever that time may be, it is going to hurt like nothing has ever hurt in my life, because he is my soulmate. You and he, the only two men I've ever called soulmates. And still, you don't see me running, trying to spare myself the pain of that inevitability. Because it would be far worse for me to be alone, trying to spare myself the pain - that's an even worse pain. You can't tell me I'm wrong, Maglor, I can  _feel_ what it's been like for you. You stubborn arse."  
  
"Dammit, Sören."  
  
"I'm right. You know I'm fucking right."  
  
Maglor sobbed. Sören did too. They wept together, leaning on each other. The rain fell harder, mirroring their tears.  
  
"D'you remember that night on the rooftop in Reykjavik?" Sören asked.  
  
"It's one of the most vivid memories I have of you."  
  
"You remarking on how I came up there night after night to watch the sunset. And I told you that no two sunsets are the same, and it never gets tired, to me."  
  
"Your perspectives on life... were, are, one of the things I love about you. I took you places I'd been before, places I would have been weary of, but you made them interesting again." A small, sad smile. "You would have been quite a travel companion, if..." His voice trailed off.  
  
Sören's heart skipped a beat again. As much as he didn't like the idea of leaving Iceland behind, there was something in his Viking blood about exploring, and if he was with the right person, anywhere he went could feel like home. But they weren't back together.  
  
_Yet._  
  
"It's like that with people, too," Sören said. "Nobody is replaceable - I grieved you, after you left. I still miss you. But I also found Nico. I don't know if I would have found him if we..." Sören didn't like to think about that. "What I'm saying is, if you had allowed yourself the chance to be with me, yes, my death would be hard on you. But maybe instead of closing yourself off after that, you could move on again and find another beautiful person, have something else beautiful. Not the same thing... but a new kind of beautiful. A new set of experiences. Something fresh, breathing new life into your years. Like the way the sunset always changes, is always worth watching to see how it's different this time. Doesn't make the other sunsets not beautiful. It makes them all beautiful, and precious, for being so unique."  
  
A long pause. "Those are quite the poetic words, Sören."  
  
"I'm an Icelander. Poetry is in our blood." A smile. "Poetry, fermented shark, and Brennivín."  
  
Soft laughter like rain. "Gods, Sören."  
  
Sören's smile became a grin.  
  
And then Maglor was serious again. "But you're getting one thing wrong. Nobody is replaceable, but especially not you. I haven't... loved... anyone else, after you. Except perhaps D-..." He caught himself quickly; Sören was curious, but Maglor's following words held his focus. "You see the beauty in everyone, and I can appreciate that about you. But for me... it isn't another new sunset, to admire the way it changes night after night. You are the fire in the sky, itself."  
  
Sören had the wild, primal urge to kiss him. But before he could give in, he started blubbering again, and then his nose started running - not exactly inspiring kisses. Maglor opened the glove compartment and handed Sören a travel packet of tissues. When Sören took them, his stomach let out a growl.  
  
"Let's get some food, yeah?"  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
They drove back to Akureyri, and to Serrano. Sören found himself laughing as he watched Maglor eat.  
  
"What."  
  
"Just... you eating."  
  
Maglor dropped his voice. "I do still need to eat, Sören. A body is still a machine, it needs fuel. Besides..." He took a bite of his enchilada. "I may have done the martyrdom thing with you, but a life needs  _some_  comfort and pleasure, and... eating is enjoyable."  
  
"Eating is indeed enjoyable." Sören's lips wrapped around his straw, and he sucked.  
  
Their gaze met, and Maglor's cheeks flushed - Sören couldn't resist the smile around the straw, the double entendre was definitely intentional.  
  
And yet, they weren't there quite yet. They drove back to the village, through the rain. "Do you want to come in for a bit?" Maglor asked.  
  
"Please."  
  
Van's Bentley was still not at the cottage. Sören wondered what it was going to be like the next time he saw Van. As if Maglor read his mind, he said, "He knows you know, now."  
  
"OK."  
  
"He said it was about time." They got out of the car and hurried into the cottage through the downpour. "He will need to talk to you himself, but he's giving it a few days because this is a lot to take in."  
  
"It is, and of course there's the matter of him being complicit in this web of deception. I know he had his reasons, but..."  
  
"He has reasons I don't even understand." They took their shoes off, and Maglor handed Sören a towel to dry off. When Maglor took it back, their fingers brushed, and Sören got that urge to kiss him again, but held off.  
  
"Do you want a drink?" Maglor offered.  
  
"I do, but I need to have less drinks than I did last night..."  
  
"Fewer."  
  
"What."  
  
"Never mind."  
  
"I need to have  _fewer_  drinks than I did last night, because I got hungover," Sören said, "and if we're still going to the studio tomorrow I need to be functional."  
  
"We're still on for the usual schedule," Maglor said. He came out with Brennivín. He gestured for Sören to sit next to him on the couch, and then he gestured at the bottle and the shot glasses. "If you'd do the honors."  
  
Sören used the Force to pour them each a glass. Maglor watched with a look of awe in his eyes.  
  
"That's beautiful," he said.  
  
Sören smiled.  
  
"I like to watch you do that," Maglor said. "It's very graceful."  
  
"One of the only times I'm graceful."  
  
"You dance well, too."  
  
"Well..." Sören raised his glass. "To grace." When the words came out, Sören realized there was an additional layer of meaning there as well - grace as in forgiveness.  
  
"To grace." Maglor clinked glasses. "And mercy." Their eyes met.  
  
Maglor leaned back on his side of the couch, with his knee resting against Sören, who didn't move away. Auli came over for cuddles, flomping between them; their fingers brushed again as they pet the dog. "You said something really... odd... when I called you."  
  
"Did I?" Sören frowned. "I wasn't really awake."  
  
"Yeah, you said... something about an ancestor of yours being accused of witchcraft."  
  
"Oh." Sören remembered the quote now. "That I wouldn't melt in the rain. It was a Wizard of Oz joke, but yes, I have a supposed witch in the family tree. Actually... it's interesting that you're bringing it up now."  
  
"Really. Sounds like you have a story."  
  
"It's relevant to this." Sören picked up the shot glass with just the Force, and used the Force to spin it around before it came back in his hand. "My brother, sister and I can all do this."  
  
"That makes your brother's career  _very_  interesting indeed. I daresay he's also hiding in plain sight, as a scientist."  
  
"Well, he does find science interesting - he's a bit obsessive about it, honestly! But I suppose that it is the best place for him to hide, being around skeptics all the time."  
  
"That TED Talk he did about aliens, alternate universes..."  
  
"He..." Sören took a deep breath. "He has children on the way, with a surrogate mother, and he decided that because of what we are, he was going to do some research to see if it was possibly genetic, like handed down in the family tree. Icelanders have kept pretty thorough records on family history for centuries, so he's done a bit of a personal project. It came out that it seems we did indeed inherit this."  
  
"Really."  
  
"And it's why I asked if you were sure you were alone, the last of your kind, because..." Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "There was a rumor that we're Elven-blooded. It's on our mother's side, though our parents were distantly related, as many Icelanders are a little inbred, so they had a common ancestor. Dagnýr's research turned up something interesting."  
  
Maglor waited.  
  
"1600s. We had an ancestor who supposedly came from Norway. During a plague he took care of his mother-in-law's family and then they turned him into the Church for supposedly practicing witchcraft. They said he spoke in a 'foreign tongue', that he 'glowed silver'... just like you did, when you showed us last night."  
  
Maglor's eyes were intense now, looking like a predatory animal about to spring.  
  
"So they strip-searched him and they found pointy ears. And he was noted in the records to be unusual-looking. Very tall... I'd guess your height, which is remarkable now, never mind back in those days when people were short... and he was said to have silver eyes, his hair was described exactly as being 'bronze' in color. His name was Tindri Magnússon."  
  
Maglor's eyes widened, his jaw dropped, and the shot glass fell out of his hand. His hand started shaking.  
  
"...Are you all right."  
  
For a moment it looked,  _felt_ , like Maglor couldn't breathe, and then his breath came out in a gasp. He took a few deep breaths, and closed his eyes, shaking. " _What did you say his name was._ " The voice, sounding like several at once.  
  
"Tindri Magnússon -"  
  
Maglor opened his eyes, fierce and wild. " _Sören._  My son's name is Tindómion. Tindómion Maglorion. He is exactly how you described him - bronze hair, silver eyes, my height and build. And his hair color was unusual even for our people, so I am certain that is not a coincidence. I told you, in the car, that he'd disappeared, and I'd wondered if he'd exiled himself to your world."  
  
"He was burned at the stake." Sören's eyes filled with hot tears. "I can get Dagnýr to send you documents as proof, if you -"  
  
Maglor closed his eyes and the tears rolled down his cheeks, as he continued shaking.  
  
Sören pulled him close, and Maglor let out a strangled sob, and Sören rocked him as he fell apart, weeping. Maglor choked out a few words that weren't English, and didn't sound Spanish or Portuguese - Sören realized that the times Maglor had sung in a "made-up language" it was in fact his own native tongue. He felt stupid for not realizing it sooner. Even from the depths of grief, the words were beautiful. Sören stroked his hair, continued rocking him, making soothing noises, as Maglor cried and cried. Sören  _hurt_  for him. More than anything else Maglor had endured - and he had endured  _so much_ , over the aeons - Sören felt like this had to be the unkindest cut of all, the confirmed loss of his own child. A son he'd loved, despite the circumstances of his birth, a living reminder of the worst moment of his life. A son that he'd tried to do his duty to, when he learned of him, even knowing it would bring him more pain.  _It's not just me who has a good heart, Maglor._  
  
Maglor pulled apart for air, and Auli took the opportunity to whine, put his front paws on Maglor's shoulders, and clean his face. Maglor ruffled the dog's fur, and planted a kiss on the dog's forehead. "You're a good boy."  
  
"Is there anything I can do?" Sören asked.  
  
"No." Maglor looked away, and then he looked back at Sören. With his bad hand, he reached out to stroke Sören's face. "You realize what this means."  
  
Sören had a feeling, but he waited for Maglor to say it.  
  
"I'm your ancestor, too. You... are my blood." Maglor laughed softly - a bitter laugh. He shook his head increduously. "I'd lost hope of ever seeing my family again. I mean, I'd hoped that I'd be able to last to just before the Dagorath, when my father's soul is, was, supposed to be released from the Halls of Mandos, even though that would mean him being reborn, and maybe our paths wouldn't cross, or if we did, he wouldn't recognize me, or I him... but..." Maglor looked into Sören's eyes. "We're related. Distantly, but you're still part of my family. Something I never thought I'd have again."  
  
"This is like... sort of incest, isn't it?"  
  
"It's far back enough that not really, but, yeah, a little, I guess." Maglor looked down. "About that. I." He took a deep breath. He showed Sören across their bond.  
  
It was one thing to ship fictional characters having incestuous relations, actual incest was another thing. Usually it was something Sören would disapprove of. But he found himself withholding judgment.  
  
He found himself  _aroused_ , rather than repulsed. The sight of Maglor and Fëanor... Maglor and Fingolfin... Maglor, Fëanor and Fingolfin... Sören felt a frisson down his spine.  
  
He also felt just a little bit vindicated, that the Fëanor/Fingolfin ship  _was_  canon, even if it wasn't canon that Tolkien had written, in the sensibilities of that era.  
  
"So now you know, I'm a murderer, a kinslayer, I raped a woman once when I was insane, and I have also had incestuous relations with my family. We were consenting adults, but. I know that most people think it's wrong -"  
  
Sören reached out to hold him again. "If it were humans, I think I'd have a problem with the incest, yes. Your people were more like gods, and in any mythology, well, that's what gods do."  
  
Maglor sobbed again. "Why are you so fucking  _accepting._ "  
  
_Because I love you._  
  
When they pulled apart, slowly, Maglor's gaze was burning his, and Sören's lips parted. Their faces were close, and for a moment it felt like they were going to kiss. Then Auli climbed down and pawed frantically at the door.  
  
Maglor cursed under his breath, but then he nodded and got up. He and Sören took the sheepdog for a walk in the rain, making the round of the village, and then when they headed back, and Sören's cabin came into view, thunder rolled.  
  
Maglor and Auli waited on the steps. Sören lingered, not quite knowing what to say. Wanting to kiss him, still, but holding back.  
  
"I'll see you tomorrow morning," Maglor said.  
  
Sören nodded. He reached out to pat him. "Thank you, again, for explaining everything. Especially... why you left."  
  
"I am so, so sorry that you felt so rejected." Maglor frowned. "That it pushed you into that filth's arms -"  
  
Sören reached out to hug him again. Thunder boomed, startling Sören, and they quickly broke away. Maglor tousled Sören's wet curls. "Good night, Sören."  
  
"Night."  
  
Sören watched him and Auli walk off, for a minute, before heading inside. Tears were in his eyes again as he shut the door behind him. He was aching for Maglor... the man he still loved. Still wanted. Ached to comfort.  
  
_What happens now?_


	31. Thunderbolt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is the Pr0n That Was Promised. <3

**Thunderbolt**

 

 _Monday_  
  
"Fucking bloody  _hell._ "  
  
In his haste to turn off the blaring alarm clock, which was even more jarring than usual this morning, snapping him out of a deep sleep, Sören accidentally swatted the clock to the floor, making a loud clatter that was even worse. He buried his face in his pillow and groaned. Dooku chuckled and patted him, and when Sören picked his face up he watched Dooku use the Force to pull the still-ringing alarm off the ground, and gingerly pressed the button to turn it off.  
  
"I'll make coffee, love." Dooku climbed out of bed.  
  
By the time Sören had gotten back last night he was an emotional wreck from Maglor's confessions, crying for him and with him. He had continued to cry, falling apart in Dooku's arms, who just held him and rocked him and pet him, showing Dooku across their Force bond what he had seen and  _felt_  of Maglor's journey. Dooku was shaken by it too, but held up a bit better, serving as Sören's strong fortress in the storm.   
  
It had actually been Dooku's suggestion for Sören to sleep in as late as he could this morning, and catch up on the rest he needed following the emotional exhaustion, which was a good idea but the trade-off was a bit of a mad dash to get ready to go to the studio in less than an hour, when he was not a morning person whatsoever and preferred to take his time getting ready, gradually pushing himself towards full alertness like acclimating to the temperature of a pool one limb at a time. There would be none of that today.   
  
Sören got straight into the shower, wanting to scream at the jangled nerves as the hot water and its usual sulfur smell - it smelled of sulfur everywhere in Iceland - hit him. There was a reason Sören usually preferred to bathe at night. "Fuck. Me. Sideways."  
  
Then he got soap in his eyes.  _This is a fucking_  smashing  _day already._  
  
When he came out of the shower and in a freshly laundered T-shirt and jeans - at least that smelled good - there was coffee and a fresh homemade fruit salad, with cream, waiting for him. " _Takk_ ," Sören said, managing a hug and a kiss. "You always take good care of me."  
  
Dooku kissed him back, and then playfully swatted Sören's rear. "I try."  
  
The cup of coffee wasn't quite enough for Sören to feel awake, but it was a start. After he was finished, and brought his dishes to the sink, doing the dishes, Dooku came over and leaned against the counter.  
  
"Sören," he said.  
  
Sören looked up.  
  
"If you want to take a few hours after your classes finish today and get further caught up with Macalaurë, I won't mind."  
  
Sören nodded. "OK. I mean, I don't know if I can handle another night like last one, another night in a row, I think I need a break before he tells me more of his tragic life story -"  
  
"- Catching up doesn't necessarily mean him telling you all of that. It could just be spending time together, like old times. It's not like you have much of that left before Vigdís and Páll return."  
  
Sören looked at the calendar. It was Monday, July twenty-ninth. On Thursday, August eighth, Sören and Dooku would be going to Reykjavik for the weekend to attend Margrét's wedding on August tenth, coming back late on Sunday August eleventh. Then on Friday the sixteenth, Vigdís and Páll would be back. As yet, Sören had no idea what Maglor's plans were when they did return and he and Van would have to clear out. He wondered if Maglor's idea of closure meant confessing the truth to him and then going off on his separate way again and that thought tore at him.  
  
Regardless, they had roughly three weeks now, and even that was not the full amount of time because of Sören going to Reykjavik for the wedding. He looked from the calendar back at Dooku, who nodded.  
  
"I don't want to take time away from you, either," Sören said.  
  
"I'm fine with having an evening to myself if you need it. We can make up for it later. And I'm quite certain this isn't an 'if', but you do both need it." Dooku patted him.  
  
"I love you, you know."  
  
"I know."  
  
After another hug and a kiss, Sören waited outside, watching Maglor's Jaguar come down the street.  
  
Unfortunately the rain was also coming down, hard. Sören normally didn't mind rainy weather - it was something you had to be used to in Akureyri - but it was pouring today and in the short time it took Maglor's car to reach the cabin, Sören was soaked. He cringed as he got in, but smiled when Maglor handed him a thermos of iced coffee. Maglor smiled back.  
  
After a few sips of iced coffee Sören ran a hand through his wet curls. "Ugh, what a day. I took a shower this morning, and then I came out and had another shower." He couldn't resist. "Second shower, I guess that's like second breakfast."  
  
Maglor's brow furrowed. "Hey Sören, do me a favor and could you, like, not with the Tolkien jokes."  
  
"Aw, I'm sorry. I didn't know that you would be offended or I wouldn't have -"  
  
Maglor waved his hand. "It's not being offended, per se, it's just that it hits a particular nerve for me."  
  
"Am I the first person you've told about any of this since his work was released?"  
  
"The full truth of what I am and where I come from? Yes. The US government knows I'm not human, even with the limited technology they had back in the 1970s, but I never told them about my background, not even when I was tor-" Maglor's voice trailed off.  
  
"You were tortured."  
  
"I believe they call it enhanced interrogation now, but yes, they got a bit rough when I didn't want to talk about things."  
  
"Jesus  _Christ_ , Maglor." It felt strange, to be calling him by his name like this, yet it felt right. Sören would only call him Alejandro to keep up appearances in public, now. "I'm so sorry you went through all that."  
  
"Yeah. So am I."  
  
"I'm also... honored... that you trust me enough to have told me all of this. I want to tell you that I wish you'd told me much sooner but I, ah. I understand why you didn't."  
  
"Why I couldn't. Would you have been able to live with it all in 2014?"  
  
"I would have rather not lost you. You didn't even give me a choice about whether or not I wanted to go where you go."  
  
The words were out before Sören could stop them from coming out.  
  
Their eyes held for a long minute, and Maglor looked away and out the window. "It's not a good life, Sören. I told you, it gets  _really_  old having to move around every ten years or so, knowing that you can't put down roots anywhere for very long and that any friend you make, you will have to let go of in the end. I wasn't going to inflict that on you."  
  
"And that still wasn't your  _fucking_  decision to make. We traveled together, Maglor. France, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy, Brazil. All of that shit was bad for you because you were alone, but when you were with me? It wasn't so bad, was it?"  
  
"You say that because it's one thing to go somewhere on holiday. It's another thing to have no permanent residence and to have to  _lie_  to people about who you are, you, who have been your fully authentic self your entire life even when it cost you. You, who cannot help but  _shine_  everywhere you go, and would have to learn how to blend into the background and not call too much attention to yourself. You would have ended up resenting me within ten or twenty years -"  
  
" _You don't fucking know that._ "  
  
Maglor took a deep breath. "Look. Sören. I know you're not a morning person, and this is probably not how you want to start your day -"  
  
"It's not. But it's started. This day is already off to a shitty start, so let's fucking bring it. I stand by my statement: I would have rather you told me the truth in 2014 than tell me that  _bullshit_  about your so-called fucking arranged marriage - god, you don't know how  _stupid_  I feel for believing you, though even then I had some doubts, wondered if you just wanted to get away from me, if I bored you now, and you see how that ended up, what that did to me. I would have rather you offered me a choice. I would have rather you not told the man who found his mother's dead body at age fucking six and married a seventy-year-old man that I don't know how fragile mortal life is and it's somehow better to be alone for thousands of years than take a few decades of happiness.  _You walked away from me._  I can forgive you for the kinslaying, for the woman you violated, for the web of lies. But  _this_? How could you not have understood I would have followed you to the ends of the earth if only you'd asked? You tell me I would have ended up resenting you, but do you not know me at all, then? You know what we had. Even now, after  _everything_ , I still love you. I never  _stopped_  loving you.  _It's like that._ " Sören let out a sob. "You own a piece of my soul, you  _are_  a piece of my soul,  _you don't get the fucking right_  -"  
  
"Sören." Maglor's voice shook. "Sören... we need to... not have this conversation right now. We're almost there. Your oils class, my guitar class, is starting in ten minutes."  
  
"And that's ten minutes from now. Are you going to walk away from me on this too -"  
  
"OK, Sören, you want to know what it is? What it really is? Even more than the fear of watching you die, the fear of you hating me if I shuffle you around from place to place?" Maglor's eyes flashed. " _I don't deserve you._  You deserve better than to be with someone  _this_  fucked up."  
  
"Maglor, what you don't deserve is to feel like you don't deserve love and companionship."  
  
Maglor looked away.  
  
They did not say another word to each other, and they reached the studio. Most of the students were already there, waiting to be let in.  
  
Sören managed to keep his grumpy attitude out of the oils class, though his own subject matter was dark storm clouds, and halfway through Sören found himself painting the phoenix and waterbird from the first painting he'd done, and the ink on his back, fighting in one of the clouds, lightning sparking from both of them.  
  
As Sören had gotten off to a late start, he handled some cleaning chores around the studio building at the beginning of the break between classes. When he went into the community room to water the plants, he saw Maglor standing at the door.  
  
"I'm going to go into town, do you want to grab a bite to eat anywhere or -"  
  
"Maybe bring something back for me?" Sören asked. "I don't want to go back out in this kind of rain till later, when we're ready to go home, plus after I'm done here I'm gonna resume work on the painting I started."  
  
"...OK."  
  
And that was what Sören did. He was feeling keyed up again from being around Maglor - frustrated,  _aroused_. He decided some music would calm him down, specifically some nice smooth R&B, so he put on the local soul music station.  
  
As he heard Maglor's Jaguar pull in, he realized the tips of the birds' tails were touching and the bird fight was looking as much like a mating dance as a fight.  
  
"Let's Stay Together" by Al Green was on the radio now, as Maglor walked in. He had a salad with garden vegetables and shrimp, and breadsticks for Sören. " _Takk_ ," Sören said, and then he smiled at the little bottle of Mountain Dew that he pulled out of the bag. "You hate this stuff."  
  
"You like it."  
  
Sören wanted to cry, even though it felt stupid to cry about it. It was the thoughtfulness of the gesture, and what it implied, after the tension of the morning.  
  
"It's a peace offering," Maglor said. He patted Sören's shoulder and was about to leave the art room.  
  
"No, don't go yet." Sören looked over at him.  
  
Maglor walked back in, and sat down a few seats away.  
  
"I'm sorry for jumping on you this morning," Sören said. "I was in a bad mood already - not a morning person, you know - and... yes, I'm still hurt about everything but I don't want to come off like it was easy for you to leave, either."  
  
"It very much was not. It was one of the biggest regrets of my life, and I say this as someone who has a laundry list of non-trivial regrets."  
  
"D'you have plans after we're done today?"  
  
Maglor shrugged. "If you're asking do I want to spend time with you again, I have no objection to that if your husband doesn't mind."  
  
"He told me before I left this morning that it was fine."  
  
"All right then. We'll have some privacy, Van checked into the hotel yesterday, and told me to let you know that's where he'll be for the remainder of the next few weeks. He does want to see you again before he leaves, which will be about a week after your neighbors return."  
  
"I'd like to see him again too but I still need some time, and he's going to have some explaining to do."  
  
"He'll have a lot of explaining to do and... Sören? Prepare to have your brain broken a little more when he does."  
  
"Great." Sören sipped the Mountain Dew. "Just great."  
  
Maglor got up. "I'm going to prepare for my next class. We can talk more later."  
  
Except when Maglor got up, he didn't go right away to his room across the hall. Sören watched him linger at the first set of paintings, studying them. He heard Maglor walking slowly down the hall.  _He's finally doing the tour._ Sören guessed he'd been putting it off for emotional reasons. Not able to help his curiosity, he quietly got up, tiptoed to the door and peeked out, and saw that Maglor was indeed looking at each painting, and had a look on his face like he'd seen a ghost.  
  
Not wanting to alert him that he was spying, Sören went back to the table, ate, and then when he had finished and was cleaning up, he heard the sound of the sink running in the bathroom. A few sobs. Sören ached for him, thought about going down the hall, demanding to be let in, and just holding him. But then he'd be crying too, and they'd both be a mess and the afternoon students would be here before they knew it. So he let Maglor be.  
  
_I wish there was something I could do._  
  
Marvin Gaye's voice began to whisper, " _Get up, get up, get up, get up. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up._ "  
  
Sören froze.  
  
_Baby I'm hot just like an oven  
I need some lovin'  
And baby, I can't hold it much longer  
It's getting stronger and stronger_  
  
Sören facepalmed as his mind went right into the gutter.  _Jesus Christ, get a hold of yourself._  
  
He let "Sexual Healing" continue, his face burning as he got out the supplies for the acrylics class. He was a little hard, and feeling flustered by the time the students started to arrive.  
  
Sören closed the door when everyone was in, so he could continue to keep the R&B station on and not bother Maglor and his music students. The music had been calming his nerves, or it did until every song suddenly turned into being about sex. Sören somehow managed to get through the class and by the end of it he felt like climbing the walls.  
  
He went to the bathroom to splash cold water on himself, and then he noticed he was leaking precum and decided to do a thorough wash. He could still smell the soap on his hands when he made his way down the hall, and started to put away the supplies.  
  
Just as he was almost done with putting everything away, he heard the flourish of Maglor's guitar and a few notes he was familiar with. He found himself walking towards Maglor's classroom and standing in the doorway just in time for Maglor to begin to sing.  
  
_Tú, tú eres el imán y yo soy el metal  
Me voy acercando y voy armando el plan  
Sólo con pensarlo se acelera el pulso  
Ya, ya me está gustando más de lo normal  
Todos mis sentidos van pidiendo más  
Esto hay que tomarlo sin ningún apuro  
  
Despacito  
Quiero respirar tu cuello despacito  
Deja que te diga cosas al oído  
Para que te acuerdes si no estás conmigo  
Despacito  
Quiero desnudarte a besos despacito  
Firmo en las paredes de tu laberinto  
Y hacer de tu cuerpo todo un manuscrito_  
  
Sören's face was on fire again. The look in Maglor's eyes, and the huskiness in his voice...  
  
_Two can play at this game._  Sören danced his way into the room, and danced as Maglor continued to play and sing "Despacito". He couldn't help the smirk on his face when he noticed Maglor's usually steady hand shaking just a little.   
  
It was all Sören could do to not start a striptease.  
  
When the song was over, Sören applauded. "Well, that was... wow." Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. "Just... wow."  
  
"Is that a good wow or a bad wow?"  
  
"It's an I-don't-even-fucking-know wow."  
  
Maglor had a mischievous smile on his face as he got up, putting his guitar back in its case. "Ready to go?"  
  
"More than ready."  
  
  
_  
  
Maglor kept his eyes on the road as much as he could - the rain was coming down even harder than this morning - but he kept stealing glances at Sören, who looked drowned and delectable all at once.  
  
He had no idea what he was doing. There had been no grand plan. Performing "Despacito" had been a spur of the moment thing. And now here they were, driving back to the cottage where he would be by himself, with Auli, for the duration of the rental.  
  
Thunder cracked, and a few seconds later, lightning flashed. Then more thunder, louder.  
  
"Jesus, I hope the power doesn't go out," Sören said.  
  
Maglor found himself snorting at that. "Sören, I've lived most of my life without electricity. If it goes out for a few hours it's not the end of the world. There are ways to entertain ourselves without TV, the Internet, any of that."  
  
"Like what? Charades? You'd be pretty good at that."  
  
_Nice burn, Sören._  Maglor gave Sören a look. "Yeah, you know what I can act out? Two people pretending to have a civilized discussion about their feelings like fucking adults."  
  
"Ohhhhhh snap."  
  
And then Sören patted him. Which was meant to be reassuring, but somehow made everything worse. His touch sparked like the lightning outside. Maglor could  _smell_  him. Not just the soap, not just the faint linger of his laundry detergent, not just the rain, but that intoxicating natural musk which always smelled a little like sweet spice and woodsmoke, and had always been more pronounced when they were making love.   
  
He was getting hard and his jeans weren't going to hide it.  
  
"Well, maybe you could play something for me," Sören said. "I love it when you sing. Love it and hate it, because it makes me fall in love with you all over again. But, you know."  
  
Maglor sighed. He knew very well. "Let's get back first and see what we're in the mood for." Maglor already knew what he was in the mood for. He was going to play, all right... Sören would be his harp.  
  
Sören's eyes twinkled, and he crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. It was all Maglor could do to not pull the car over and kiss Sören until he couldn't breathe, drag him out into the rain and rut with him in the pouring rain and the wet ground like two animals in heat. Maglor had no idea if Sören was  _doing that_  on purpose or not, but every time Sören  _did that_  it had a Pavlovian effect on him, and of all the times for Sören to be doing that, now was the worst possible time.  
  
Or the best. He took a deep breath. He hadn't started the day intending to seduce Sören Sigurdsson, but as they approached their street in Svalbarðseyri it seemed inevitable.  
  
Of all the performances he had ever given, he was the most nervous about this, feeling like a young ellon all over again. Remembering when he'd asked his uncle Fingolfin to be his first time... the crush he'd had on his uncle  _and_  his father, seeing them together... wanting to practice for Fëanor...  
  
Something about the way Sören was radiating heat, radiating sexual  _need_ , now, was like Fëanor. Dangerously like him, and Maglor was responding the same way; he  _needed_  too.  _Fire calling to fire._  There was no stopping this now, would be no stopping unless Sören said no.  
  
They got out of the car and quickly headed in, just in time for a loud crash of thunder that made the lights flicker.  
  
"Fuck," Sören said.  
  
"OK, let me get prepared in case the lights go out. Feel free to help yourself to anything in the kitchen while I do."  
  
Before Vigdís and Páll had left, they had met with him and Vanimórë to go over not just the care and feeding of Auli but where they kept various emergency supplies. There was a drawer that held emergency tealights, and a stash of tealight holders. Maglor got them out now... and marched into the bedroom. His hands shaking again, he set the tealights in their holders around the room and began to light them. He turned off the bedroom light and there was a nice golden ambiance.  
  
He quickly ate a breath mint, even though he didn't really need it.  _Gods, what am I doing._  He preened a little, combing his hair, wishing he could drop the glamour and let his full length down.  
  
Sören was in the kitchen, leaning against the kitchen counter drinking a bottle of water, and had given some fresh water to Auli as well, who was lapping thirstily from his bowl. Maglor felt pretty thirsty too... not for water. He watched Sören's full lips wrap around the water bottle and their eyes met again.  
  
Not thinking, just feeling, Maglor walked forward, feeling like he was carrying a storm with him. He snatched Sören's water bottle away, grabbed Sören's face, and kissed him, hard and deep.  
  
There was no resistance. Sören was kissing him back, as hungry for it as he was. Sören made a delicious little whimper into the kiss - Maglor's cock leapt at the sound of it - and then twinged again when he felt Sören's hands on him, roaming over his chest, down to his hips. Sören pressed against him and he was just as hard.  
  
Not breaking the kiss, Maglor grabbed Sören's hands and began pulling him towards the bedroom. They pulled apart once they got in the bedroom door, and, breathing hard, Sören noticed the lit candles. Maglor immediately began undressing, taking his shirt off, then reaching for his belt, pulling that out and letting it drop to the floor, undoing the button and zipper of his jeans.  
  
Sören was just staring at him, and before he could get the rest of his clothing off, he grabbed Sören to kiss him again, guided Sören's hands over the exposed flesh. Sören's touch was like fire, and both of them groaned into the kiss. Wordlessly, Sören's hands slipped to Maglor's boxer briefs, and Maglor realized  _that_  was why Sören had just been standing there, staring... waiting for this. As if to say,  _this is mine._  
  
As soon as Maglor's cock was free, Sören dropped to his knees and wrapped those full, luscious lips around it the way they'd wrapped around the water bottle in the kitchen. Looked up at him with heat in his eyes as he started to suck. Maglor let out a moan, grabbed Sören's curls, and Sören sucked like he'd been starving for it; Maglor looked down and saw Sören was rubbing himself through his jeans.  
  
The sight of that, and the sensation of Sören's mouth enveloping him - the surge of emotion, the all-consuming  _need_  - Maglor didn't want to come too soon. He reluctantly pulled Sören off his cock. Sören made a moue, and the pouty lips and puppy dog eyes were only making that need more violent, feral.  
  
"Don't you like it?" Sören husked.  
  
"I like it too much." Maglor helped him up, and then he kissed Sören hard. Tugged on the tail of Sören's shirt, pulled it over Sören's head. Worked on yanking off his jeans, and then Sören's own boxer-briefs. When Sören was naked, too, Maglor took a moment to drink in the sight of him. It was just as he'd remembered, fantasized about. His fingers traced over the flames on one arm, ocean waves on the other, up to Sören's shoulders, and then down over Sören's chest, lingering on the pierced nipples. He couldn't resist playing with one of the rings. The  _moan_  Sören made at that,  _Hells..._  
  
Sören moved closer, arms encircling around Maglor. They both gasped as their cocks pressed together; Maglor shuddered as he felt Sören's Prince Albert piercing rub against his slit. "Sören." His voice was raw.  
  
" _Ástin mín._ " Sören kissed him. Then started kissing his neck.   
  
_Gods_ , how he wanted, had ached for this. It wasn't just that he'd been mostly celibate the last five years, save the occasional hatefuck with Vanimórë the last two months, but he'd missed  _Sören_ 's touch. He could have had someone else and it wouldn't have been  _this_. And here, now, he felt like he was being torn apart and put back together, and they had barely begun.  
  
"Sören." That was all he could say right now, his name.  
  
" _Ég þarf þig, ég er svo svöng fyrir þig._ " Their eyes met. The longing in Sören's eyes mirrored his own; he could have  _wept_.  
  
Maglor pushed him onto the bed, climbed over him. Sören's arms wrapped around him, and they kissed and kissed like their lives depended on it. Sören was arching to him, panting, and with a desperate look on his face he ground out, " _Taktu mig, ég þarf þig inni í mér._ " He glanced over at the bedtable. "Do you have lube in here?"  
  
"Yes. In the drawer -"  
  
Maglor watched as the drawer opened without Sören touching it, and the bottle of personal lubricant came floating out, over to them. He still wasn't used to seeing it, and it made his breath catch whenever Sören demonstrated that power. His mouth claimed Sören's again, and he felt the bottle thrust into his hand.  
  
" _Inni í mér, núna. Riddu mér._ "  
  
The fact that Sören was so far gone in his lust that he was lapsing into his native language wasn't lost on Maglor. He kissed Sören again as he poured lube over his own cock, and into Sören's passage.  
  
When he was all the way in they both cried out together. Maglor took a few slow thrusts, gasping for breath, shaking as he felt Sören wrap around him - the sweet, slick velvet heat, hot like a furnace.  _I'm_  inside  _Sören._   _I'm inside_  Sören.  _Oh, Gods, Sören, I need thee._  
  
"Yes," Sören breathed. "Oh, yes."  
  
And then, that look in Sören's eyes when, plunging in again, Maglor hit that spot. The wild cry Sören made, nails digging into his back. " _Riðu!_ "  
  
That set him off. Maglor drove into him, pounding him into the mattress. Slow, gentle and sensual could come later, he'd no doubt they'd be hungry again later. Right now - he needed to  _fuck_.  
  
They both did. Sören's hips were rocking back at him, matching his rhythm. That desperate look on Sören's face, gasping, panting, moaning. "Yes, yes,  _yes_ ," Sören cried, to the rhythm of the push and pull. " _Riðu, riddu mér, riddu mér!_ "  
  
"Sören." Maglor met his gaze, reached to stroke Sören's face, pet his curls, needed to show some tenderness even as he was plowing away. "Sören.  _Melindo._ "  
  
Sören kissed him hard, and then Sören's legs were wrapped around him. Maglor drove into him harder, and Sören moaned " _mmmmm_ , mm-hmm!" into the kiss, hands stroking over him, playing with his hair.  
  
"Sören." He buried his face in Sören's shoulder, inhaled the scent of him, like it was the air he needed to breathe, like his lungs had been starved of it. He felt tears burning his eyes, but the dam wasn't ready to break yet. There was only fire now, the flood would come later. "Sören. Oh, gods,  _Sören_..."  
  
" _Riddu mér... riddu mér, elskan..._ "  
  
The term of endearment tore at him. He kissed Sören again, feeling himself right on that edge of orgasm, but he had... to make... this last... just a little bit longer. They  _needed_. Hells, how they needed.  
  
Sören was trembling, nails digging in him again. " _Erfiðara. Hraðar._ "  
  
He'd been with Sören enough times over five years to know  _exactly_  what those words meant. He rose up, on his knees, Sören's legs on his shoulders, and gave it to him as hard as he could. Sören let out a wordless scream, and worked his hips, giving it back as good as he got. "Yes...  _meira... meira..._  oh,  _fuck_  that's good..."  
  
Maglor made a deep groan. The pleasure, the lust, the  _love_  was overwhelming. He basked in the glorious fire just a little longer, both of them right on that edge, slamming against each other in the rhythm of the heat.  
  
" _Meira, meira, ekki hætta, ekki hætta alltaf_!"  
  
Maglor growled. He kept thrusting, feeling himself hurtling towards orgasm, trying to hold back,  _not yet_  -  
  
"Oh god." That look of joyful surprise Sören got on his face just before climax, wide-eyed and almost innocent. And then the awe, as he erupted, spraying his seed over Maglor's chest and stomach, coating his own chest and stomach. Sören always looked like he was having a religious experience when he orgasmed - across their bond Maglor felt that sense of wonder, no matter how many times he'd done this, it was amazing anything could feel that good, that  _right_. It was an act of surrender, for Sören -  _you did this. You gave me this._  
  
Feeling Sören contract around him, and the sight of Sören's ecstasy, and Maglor cried out as he spent into him. It was all heat and light, like a supernova exploding.  
  
They lay together, entangled, riding the last waves of their pleasure. Sören was still shaking a little, lashes fluttering. Finally he looked up at Maglor, who took Sören's chin in his hand, and his fingertips traced every feature of Sören's lovely face, lingering on the full lips that he would never grow tired of kissing. Sören kissed the fingertip, and then he drew Maglor's finger into his mouth, sucking with an innocent-yet-naughty look on his face.  
  
Maglor was still inside him, and felt himself hardening again at that. Sören grinned, and kissed him. Then he stopped grinning, eyes hungry, a gaze that could peel the paint off the walls of the room. "Again," he panted.  
  
"More slowly this time," Maglor said, kissing him back, kissing Sören's neck. "It's been too long..." Five years was not even a drop in the bucket in the life of an Elf, and yet it felt like an eternity. An eternity spent together, an eternity spent apart.  
  
Their hands clasped, as Maglor began thrusting again, much more gently this time.  
  
" _Elskan._ " Sören's eyes were full of love. " _Ástin mín._ "  
  
" _Melindo._ " Maglor kissed him deep.  
  
Sören let go of Maglor's hand and stroked his face, pet his hair, pushed it back to reveal the pointy ears. Touched the points, played with them, pressed their foreheads together, the two nuzzling, breathing each other's breath. " _Mín fyrsta ást. Ég hef saknað þín._ "  
  
"I've missed you too."  
  
They kissed again, and Sören took Maglor's bad hand, brought the palm to his lips and kissed the scar there, bringing tears to Maglor's eyes. Then Sören  _licked_  the scar, and Maglor groaned, making himself hold back from thrusting harder.  _Savor._  That became even more difficult when Sören began to lick and suck the fingers of his bad hand, sensually, then just nuzzling it, raining sweet little kisses over it.  
  
"You're not too fucked up for me. I love you.  _All_  of you, even the broken places," Sören said. "That makes you no less beautiful to me."  
  
_Gods._  The tears were starting to flow, silently.  
  
" _Falleg álfur minn. Með fallegu augunum og fallegu rödd þinni og fallegu hani þínum._ "  
  
"You're beautiful too." Maglor stroked Sören's face, and pressed the palm of his bad hand to Sören's heart. "Especially here."  
  
" _Falleg elskan mín._ " Another deep kiss. Then Sören whispered into his ear, " _Ljúffengur grillaður osturinn minn._ "  
  
The more things changed... the more they stayed the same. It had been a running joke between them, years ago, when Maglor was turned on by Sören talking sweet and dirty in Icelandic, Sören would throw in random words to tease him. Calling him cheese or grilled cheese - Sören's favorite food next to his _paella_ \- stuck. He gave Sören a look, though he wasn't truly annoyed. If anything he was deeply touched, that reminder of how things had once been.  
  
Things had once been  _beautiful._  
  
Sören giggled. "I couldn't help it."  
  
"Brat." Maglor kissed him.  
  
"Your brat."  
  
"Gods, I've missed you." Maglor kissed him again.  
  
" _Elskan mín. Ástin mín._ " A wicked grin. " _Gerjuð hákarlinn minn._ "  
  
"You... just called me fermented shark."  
  
"At least it wasn't grilled cheese again."  
  
Maglor nipped Sören's neck with a growl, thrusting just a little harder and faster. Then Sören took Maglor's face and, more seriously, he said, " _Þú ert tónlist í hjarta mínu_."  
  
"Oh, Hells, Sören." The tears came again.  
  
Sören kissed the tears that flowed, claimed his mouth again, petting his hair, and then Sören husked, " _Elskan._ Let me see you." His eyes narrowed. "The real you."  
  
Maglor took a deep breath. He dropped the glamour, glowing silver against the dark gold of the candlelit room, bathing Sören in silver light. Sören's eyes widened, and there were tears in his eyes now as well. But he leaned up to kiss him, arms and legs tightening around him, playing with the flood of hair. "You are  _glorious_ ," Sören said. "Never mind this shit about you not deserving me - I feel like I don't deserve you."  
  
"You're wrong." Maglor kissed him hard. "This is for you, Sören. This is yours."  
  
Sören clung for dear life and started rocking his hips, urging him on faster. Maglor met his rhythm, and then they were fucking harder - not as hard as before, but still paced fast enough to make them pant, make the bed rock against the wall, their flesh slapping together. "Fuck, I need this..." Sören shuddered. " _Ég þarf þig. Ég þarf þig..._ "  
  
"Yes, love. I know. I need it too. I need  _you._ " Their eyes met. "I  _need_  you."  
  
"God..." Sören let out a whimper. The deliciousness of it almost sent Maglor over the edge; he grit his teeth, making himself hold back. Sören's eyes rolled, and closed, and then they looked at Maglor again, fully unglamoured, and Sören's breath caught. Maglor kissed him again, hard, wanting him to know he  _was_  worthy of this, the beautiful soul that had drawn him in ten years ago, his  _light_.  
  
"Sören." At last, he said it. "I love you."  
  
" _God._ " Sören started to cry, rocking against him faster and harder, the passion rising once more. " _Ég elska þig elskan, aldrei yfirgefa mig, ekki fara, farðu aldrei aftur í burtu. Vertu hjá mér, ég þarf þig, ég þarf þig svo mikið, ég elska þig._ "  
  
"Sören..."  
  
" _Ekki fara, vertu hjá mér, ég elska þig_."  
  
"I won't leave this time." The pain of those words, what it would  _cost_  him, when Sören's life was as dust. But he would carry Sören's memory in the Song, as he did his family. Wrenching himself away now would be worse. "I won't leave you again, my love, I swear it." He did not swear things lightly at all, ever, after the Oath.  
  
They were both sobbing. Maglor kissed him and prepared for the descent, driving it home, until the sensation and emotion overpowered both of them and they were pulled into the waves of fire.   
  
"Macalaurë," Sören cried out, spilling his seed again. Never had his name sounded so sweet before. " _Macalaurë!_ " The look of rapture on his face...  
  
Maglor let out a deep groan with the power of his release, throbbing and throbbing as Sören pulsed around him. " _Sören._ "  
  
There was thunder outside again, louder than before, and for a moment the cottage shook. Then there was just the thunder of their hearts, as they came down from their climax. Maglor wanted to reach into Sören's mind and pull him into that place in the Song that they inhabited when they came together, but it wasn't time yet.  
  
_Soon._  Not today, but soon.  
  
They lay there for awhile. Sören needed water - they had both worked up a sweat. Maglor went out to get water, not caring that he was walking through the cottage naked, and came back. Sören sat up and drank. They sat there for a few minutes, looking at each other in the soft golden glow of the candlelight. Maglor was still unglamoured.  
  
"You are exquisite," Sören told him. "I don't just mean what you look like. It's like what you look like is the outer expression of who you are, inside."  
  
Maglor gave him a soft, gentle kiss. He had no words to respond.  
  
Sören reached out to touch him, awe on his face. "It means a lot to me, that you... will let me see this." His voice dropped, and husked. "That you said you'll stay with me. You meant that? Really?"  
  
"I meant that. I don't have any plans yet for what I'll do when your neighbors get back, but we'll figure something out." Maglor nodded. "We're... going to have to talk to Dooku -"  
  
Sören chuckled a little. Then he said, "That sneaky bastard."  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"He told me he was fine having an evening to himself if I wanted to spend time with you, if I wanted to get  _caught up_ , even though he knew I was too emotionally exhausted for another night of confession. He said we could 'spend time together, _like old times_.' It's like he knew we were going to get  _caught up_ , all right."  
  
"Your husband is shrewd. Very observant. He probably saw this coming after yesterday."  
  
"He probably heard it coming, too." Sören threw his head back and laughed. "We get a little loud."  
  
"That we do."  
  
"But I have no shame." Sören threw his arms around Maglor. "Only desire." He kissed him, and the kiss deepened, heated; Maglor groaned into the kiss, hard for Sören again.  
  
"I don't think we've finished catching up," Maglor rasped between kisses and licks at Sören's neck, breathing in his delicious scent.  
  
"I don't think we'll ever finish catching up." With that, Sören pushed Maglor onto his back and climbed over him, straddling his hips. Sören slid his hands over Maglor's chest as he sank down, impaling himself, and they both gasped and moaned when Maglor bottomed out in him, down to the root. Sören took his hands and started riding, slowly.  
  
"What's the most number of times you've ever climaxed in one session?" Maglor asked.  
  
"Um." Sören paused for a moment and cocked his head to one side. "I think six, and that was, um, Van."  
  
"Well then." Maglor grabbed Sören's hips. "You've had two, prepare for five more. At least. At the minimum."  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. Maglor's cock throbbed at that and he leaned up to kiss Sören,  _wanting_.  
  
Thunder rolled, rain poured, their passion stormed all night.


	32. The Chain

**The Chain**

 

 _Tuesday_  
  
"Mmmf." Sören stirred, feeling a gentle rubbing at his back. There was light pushing against his closed eyes, which he opened slowly, blearily.  
  
The backrub stopped, and now little kisses rained over his face. Sören heard Maglor singing  
  
_Morning has broken, like the first morning  
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird  
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning  
Praise for them springing fresh from the word  
  
Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven  
Like the first dew fall, on the first grass  
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden  
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass  
  
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning  
Born of the one light, Eden saw play  
Praise with elation, praise every morning  
God's re-creation of the new day  
  
Morning has broken, like the first morning  
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird  
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning  
Praise for them springing fresh from the word_  
  
Sören opened his eyes, and looked into those eyes like labradorite. The room was dim, with faint golden light coming in behind the drawn blinds and curtains... and Maglor's silver glow. Maglor stroked Sören's face, and leaned in to kiss his forehead.  
  
"Good morning, my love," Maglor said.  
  
"Hi." Sören smiled. He glanced at the clock next to the bed - it was after 7 AM.  
  
Memories came flooding back to him. Maglor had him seven times in different positions, before they pulled apart, sweaty and exhausted, to rummage up something to eat. Feeding each other like lovers put them in a sensual mood again, and after showering together to wash off the sweat, which deepened the haze of sensuality, they had each other for dessert, Sören tasting him for the first time in years. That final eighth orgasm shattered Sören enough to fall asleep afterwards, and he'd slept like a baby. At some point in the middle of the night he'd woken up and felt Maglor's arms tighten around him, whispering endearments in what was probably Elvish before Sören fell back asleep. And now here he was. It was the morning after, and for once Sören didn't hate that it was morning. There were worse ways to wake up.  
  
"Shit." Sören hadn't intended on spending the night, and he wasn't sure if Dooku saying he was fine taking an evening to himself had meant he could spend the night or not. He ran a nervous hand through his curls, scratching his head. He also hadn't brought a change of clothes - this had all been spontaneous, yesterday - and Maglor had almost a foot on him so wearing something of his was impractical. He was going to have to put on the same clothes to go back home and get ready for work. He used the Force to pull his pile of clothing off the floor and bring it over to the bed. As he started pulling on his boxer-briefs, he winced - his body had been  _very_ well-used last night, and he was feeling the after effects of it now.  
  
Maglor noticed the wince. "A little sore?"  
  
"...Yeah." Sören's face flushed, his mind replaying the delicious lovemaking. He had never been so sex hungry in his life. So thoroughly wanton, debauched. At one point he'd been on all fours, feeling like a bitch in heat, Maglor's teeth on the back of his neck as he drove into him.  _More, I need more,_  Sören had cried out, desperate for it, bucking against him, crying out again as Maglor's arms held him tight, Maglor's hand slid down to play with his sensitized cock to the rhythm of those savage thrusts. Sören remembered the  _noises_  he'd made, his throat still raw from it. The slap of their flesh, Maglor's deep groans of primal satisfaction as he took what was  _his_. And the way Sören had begged, when he could make words, through the fever.  _Please. Please. Don't stop, more, don't stop, don't ever stop, I need this, I need it, I need_  you.  
  
And oh, the sweet finale, tender and beautiful, the two exploring each other's entire bodies, reverently, passionately, before settling into a sixty-nine, slow and languid. Coming together, taking each other's hands as they let go. Rising up to kiss each other with their mouths full of cum before swallowing, savoring the sweet taste of their combined seed.  
  
Sören went hard again, as he remembered.  
  
Maglor gave him a look that was equal parts compassion and amusement. "I'd apologize, but..."  
  
"I have no regrets." Sören cringed again from the soreness as he stood up, pulling on his jeans. "Only that it took us this long to get back together."  
  
"I have no regrets either. ...Except leaving in the first place."  
  
Maglor came over to kiss him. He was hard again too. Sören looked down at the hard cock and then was drawn deeper into the kiss, with a groan. When they pulled apart, breathing hard, Sören said, "We better not right now, or we'll never leave here today, and we shouldn't cancel classes." A pause. "I also have to go home. Nico -"  
  
Maglor nodded. "I understand. I'll take you home, and then pick you up when it's time to go to the studio."  
  
" _Takk._ "  
  
After getting changed and having coffee, they stepped outside into that strange yet wonderful golden glow the world sometimes got after a big storm. The remnants of yesterday's downpour sparkled in the grass, and Sören's breath caught at the sight of a double rainbow over the hills. "Holy  _shit._ "  
  
"That is magnificent." Maglor took his hand and for a moment they just stood there to marvel at it.  
  
Maglor drove slowly down the street, as if he didn't want to let Sören go just yet, even though it would only be a couple hours before they'd see each other again. In front of Sören's cabin, they lingered, and then Sören leaned over to kiss him, intending to give him a soft, gentle kiss. Their mouths met wildly, and they were necking, groping, before Maglor finally gave Sören a little push. "Off with you," he said, humor in his voice. "Horndog."  
  
"Like you're not."  
  
Maglor grinned. Sören gave him a playful swat on his way out of the Jaguar.  
  
Dooku was already up and dressed, sitting at his laptop at the desk in the corner of the cabin, drinking coffee. He stopped what he was doing and looked at Sören as he staggered in, wincing a little from last night's use.  
  
"Hi," Sören said.  
  
"Hello." Dooku's eyes went back to the screen, and he picked up his cup and sipped.  
  
"Um." Sören ran a hand through his curls. "I'm sorry I didn't come back last night -"  
  
"It's fine." Dooku put the cup back down. "I had a feeling when I told you I was OK with taking an evening to myself, that you might." He didn't have to finish the sentence.  
  
"Well, I still feel like I could have at least called or something. I ended up passing out after..."  
  
"I'm sure you did." Then Dooku's lips quirked and Sören saw the faintest touch of amusement in his eyes. "Did you know we had an earthquake in the early evening yesterday? Just under two hours after your last class was over?"  
  
"Er... no, I did not."  
  
"A small one, reports said magnitude 4.1, I believe - enough to be felt, not enough to do damage or cause too much panic, though the epicenter was quite close, so." Dooku raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Wow." Sören looked off to the side, face burning. "That's, um, really interesting."  
  
"Quite."  
  
Sören wanted to chalk something like that up to a coincidence, but somehow he couldn't, and that scared him a little, a frisson down his spine, gooseflesh breaking out on his arms. He grabbed fresh, clean clothing and began to change there in front of Dooku, who glanced at him from time to time, dark eyes appreciative and hungry in the moment that Sören was completely naked. Sören wished he weren't so spent - and sore - feeling a pang of guilt.  
  
When Sören was dressed, he pet Snúdur, who'd hopped up on the bed with an inquisitive chirp. Snúdur proceeded to headbutt him and rub his face against him, and eventually Sören scooped him up, rubbing his nose in the black-and-white fur, giving little kisses, talking baby talk, with Snúdur kneading and purring and drooling in his bliss. Dooku watched them with a little smile, and when their eyes met, the love in his eyes made Sören's breath catch.  
  
Love... and sadness.  
  
"Are you  _very_  sure that it was fine that I -"  
  
Dooku nodded. "Yes. But we need to talk." He finished his coffee, and walked the cup over to the sink. He used the Force to turn on the tap. "By 'we', I mean the three of us. Meaning Macalaurë."  
  
"Obviously."  
  
"I think the sooner, the better, so if you could invite him over for dinner, perhaps?"  
  
"I'll do that."

  
_

  
  
Sören did a double-take when he got in the Jaguar and Maglor handed him the usual thermos of iced coffee.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
Sören blinked. "I just... ha ha... I think I got used to seeing you without your glamour and now that it's back up, it's weird. I mean, you're still  _devastatingly_  attractive when you try to pass for human, but..."  
  
Maglor smiled. "Well, you know I can't go unglamoured in public."  
  
"I know. Like I said, you're still  _gorgeous_. I just..."  
  
"I get it."  
  
"When we're alone... you don't have to have your glamour up around me if you don't want to. Unless I'm driving. Because I don't think I'd be able to safely drive, I'd crash the car." Sören laughed. "But since you won't be unglamoured in public, there's no reason -"  
  
Maglor nodded.  
  
Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "I feel so... plain... next to you." He looked out the window at the green landscape.  
  
"Oh no. Sören, have you seen yourself? You're beautiful. You and Dooku make a really nice-looking couple."  
  
Sören's gaze turned back to Maglor, who was a little pink now.  _Interesting._  "Elves don't grow facial hair, do they?"  
  
"We can, but not until we're of a venerable age, and most do not." Maglor looked at Sören. "I like your facial hair. I would be disappointed if you shaved it off to try to look, well, different to try to please me."  
  
"That's good, because I don't like myself without it. I look too young, and like a girl." Sören chuckled.   
  
"And on your husband, it's distinguished. He's quite handsome."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow at that, and sipped his coffee, but said nothing in response.  
  
"So no, if you're thinking I somehow find you inferior to my own kind... please disabuse yourself of that notion immediately. I find you lovely, Sören. I probably find you just as exotic as you find me." And then Maglor's look became more predatory. "In case you couldn't tell how aroused I was by you, last night."  
  
" _God._ " Sören's laughter rang out, and he winced as the laughter reminded him of his soreness. "Last night was amazing."  
  
"It was. I hope to have many more nights like that."  
  
Sören's mind began replaying the scenes from last night again, and he was so flustered that he couldn't say anything else for the remainder of their trip to the studio.  
  
Sören was in a good mood for his watercolors class, and in addition to the enjoyment he took in the creations of others, and encouraging his students, he painted the golden glow and rainbows from this morning, wanting to always preserve the memory. The sound of Maglor's piano class across the hall was comforting rather than jarring, now that his class was improving.  
  
When their classes were over and the students gone, Maglor stopped outside the door to Sören's art room. "Do you want to go anywhere for lunch, or do you want me to bring you something?"  
  
"Can you bring me something? I gotta do some cleaning in here while I have this extra energy to burn off."  
  
Maglor headed out, and Sören put on the radio, and the same soul station from yesterday. He sang along with Beyoncé and Rihanna as he cleaned and organized the art room. Then he found himself dancing to a song by Jimmy Edgar and Machinedrum.  
  
_You my dealer  
  
You give me all the feels  
You put me down like NyQuil  
We're doing Netflix and chill  
Put me down like you're putting the drill  
  
I might just overdose on you  
I really don't give a fuck if I do  
The sex is made of pills and potions too  
I take it daily like it's my excuse  
  
You my connect  
I take it 'cause it keep me wasted and I don't like fucking with basic  
You my dealer  
I need it, I need it on time  
And Imma need more than a dime  
  
I might just overdose on you  
I really don't give a fuck if I do  
The sex is made of pills and potions too  
I take it daily like it's my excuse_  
  
The song seemed to perfectly reflect where Sören was at in this moment, that state of sexual  _need_ , feeling like he was addicted. He thought of last night. He thought of the way he was going to make it up to Dooku. He thought of the contrast between his lovers' bodies, enjoying the variety.  
  
He wanted them both. At the same time, even. The thought flooded him with heat. He felt greedy, completely wanton, and he loved it. He felt  _alive._  Sören let go completely, dancing like he didn't care, grinding, shaking his ass.  
  
_It's hard to get off you  
I don't know if I want to  
  
You my connect  
I take it 'cause it keep me wasted and I don't like fucking with basic  
You my dealer  
I need it, I need it on time  
Imma' need more than a dime_  
  
When the song was over and a slower song came on, Sören heard a clearing of the throat at the door. Sören whirled around, going from the abandon of dancing to feeling self-conscious that he had probably gotten caught. "Oh. Hi."  
  
Maglor grinned. "Hi."  
  
"...How much of that did you see."  
  
"Enough." Though he was smiling, the look in Maglor's eyes could melt metal. Sören felt that shiver down his spine, his own heat rising.  
  
"Er." Sören looked at the paper bag in Maglor's hand.  
  
"Right." Maglor brought it to the art table, and Sören sat down. He pulled out a grilled cheese sandwich, which was still warm, and a thermos of tomato soup.  
  
"You made me this."  _You remembered my favorites._  
  
"I know it's not fancy, but."  
  
"Shush, you know what I like." Sören felt weirdly choked up by it, and a little self-conscious that he was getting emotional over a sandwich and some soup. "You didn't forget..."  
  
"Elves never forget things. But even without that..." Their eyes met. "I couldn't forget you, Sören. Not even when I wanted to."  
  
Sören was torn between the need to feed his growling stomach and the need to feed his raging libido. The hunger for food won out, since it wouldn't be terribly long to his children's class and he didn't need the kids to accidentally walk in on something like that. He started nibbling the sandwich. "Oh god, you made it with Swiss cheese too, you wonderful man."  
  
"As I said."  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. He felt a surge of heat from Maglor's direction, and he felt himself hardening.  _Not now, boner._  "I love you, you know."  
  
"I know. I love you too. Very much. I never stopped loving you."  
  
"Goddammit, Maglor, you're gonna make me cry."  
  
"Well, eat your food, and I'll go work on this song I'm writing, till our classes start." Maglor got up.  
  
"Wait." Sören put up his finger. Maglor paused. Sören chewed and swallowed. "Nico wants you to come by for dinner. He wants to talk to both of us."  
  
"Is he pissed that you spent the night with me...?"  
  
"He says no. He didn't specify what the talk was about, but he knows we're back together so I assume it's about that."  
  
"OK. Well, I'll be there, after I tend to Auli."  
  
Sören tried to pull himself together before the class started, with cold water and deep breaths, making himself think of things other than sex with Maglor, sex with Dooku, sex with Maglor and Dooku at the same time.  _Fuck._  
  
He managed to calm down and get through the children's class, a perfect end to a day that had actually started right. He lost himself in their innocence and wonder and play, letting himself be a big kid along with them, and felt a little pang about not having kids himself. In his mind's eye, as he sculpted, Sören saw himself with sons, in a place that felt like Earth yet somehow not at once, and there was Dooku except he was different, younger-looking, with long dark hair and silver-blue eyes. A resemblance to Maglor.  _Our children, Ñolo._  
  
Then another flash - Claire, the girl he'd loved many years ago, would have gone bi for if he'd thought she'd be accepting, and had held off telling her of his feelings, unsure. Claire, who had committed suicide the same week to the day he'd attempted it, as if somehow they had been connected. In his vision she was pregnant, the two of them cuddling, Sören reading a storybook aloud to the unborn child, kissing the swollen belly.  _Aww, he kicked me._  
  
...Maglor, looking at them from the hallway of their house ( _our house?_ ), smiling tenderly.  
  
_What in the fuck._  
  
Sören was spooked. He composed himself, but he was in a strange mood when the class was over. Enough that he had to step outside for a few minutes and breathe.

  
  
_

  
  
As Maglor got ready to go, he heard the door to the studio open, and footsteps down the hall. Then the bathroom door closing, and the sink running.  
  
"Sören? You in there?"  
  
"Jæja, I'll be out soon."  
  
Sören came out, looking like he'd seen a ghost, more tightly shielded than usual. "What happened? Are you OK?"  
  
Sören nodded. "I'm fine."  
  
Maglor gave him a look. It had been his experience that if he had to ask Sören if he was OK, Sören usually wasn't. He felt Sören doubling down on his shield.   
  
"Really, I'm fine. Come on, see the little sculpture I made."  
  
His class was making papier mache sculptures, instead of clay this time. Sören had made a tortoise.  
  
"I have to paint him next week, maybe embellish his shell, but..."  
  
"He's adorable. It's a he?"  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
"Does he have a name?"  
  
"Copernicus." Sören grinned.  
  
"That's ridiculous. I like it."  
  
Sören's grin got bigger, his eyes crinkling with amusement. "It just randomly occurred to me for some reason. It tickled me. My brain is an interesting place to be sometimes."  
  
"Only sometimes?"  
  
"Only sometimes. Other times it's a cesspool."  
  
"I can't pretend to be innocent myself." Maglor couldn't resist. "Especially not after seeing you dance earlier."  
  
Sören  _slammed_  him against the wall, kissing him hard. Maglor groaned as he felt Sören's fingertips play over his chest, down his stomach and hips. After a few breathless kisses, Sören's mouth was on his neck, the full lips just grazing, breath hot on his skin.  
  
"D'you know," Sören rasped, "how fucking  _crazy_  you make me?"  
  
Maglor took Sören's chin in his hand. "About as crazy as you make me." He claimed Sören's mouth and thrust out against him, letting Sören feel how hard he was for him. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you all afternoon." He kissed Sören again. " _Wanting_  you."  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip.  _That._  Maglor's cock throbbed, and he lost all sense of propriety and caution. He started pushing Sören back, walking away from the wall, marching them both towards Sören's art room, needing it  _now_.  
  
Before they could get there, Sören waved his hand and the door to the studio slammed closed, and then with a turn of his hand it locked from down the hall. That way they would be undisturbed. As soon as they set foot in the art room, Sören reached for his belt buckle, and Maglor pulled out the little travel-sized bottle of lube he knew Sören carried in his jeans pocket, had started carrying lube on him when they were together and could not get enough of each other, any time, any place.  
  
Between kisses, Sören looked down at the lube. "I'm too sore to bottom again after yester -"  
  
"It's not for you to bottom."  
  
Maglor watched Sören's eyes widen at that, and then Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip again. Maglor felt ready to climb the walls. "Hells, Sören." His voice was rough with desire. "I need you in me. It's been too long."  
  
They got naked right there in the art room. Even though the front door to the studio had been shut and locked to ensure they wouldn't be disturbed, Sören also shut the door to the art room with his mind; Maglor wondered what he was doing until he saw Sören waved at the window, pulling down the blinds to darken the room. In the dim light, Maglor's natural silver glow was more intense when he dropped his glamour, as he did now, loving the way Sören's breath caught at the sight of him.  
  
Maglor sat at the edge of the table, his legs dangling, and he lay back, spreading his legs. He expected Sören to take him right then, but he was surprised - and yet shouldn't have been, considering their history - when Sören got on his knees on the floor, and his tongue slid inside. Maglor let out a cry as he felt Sören's tongue brushing the most sensitive, intimate part of him, so sweetly. He could have  _wept_ , for the glory of that tongue and what it was doing to him, stroking slowly and deliberately, then harder and faster, then slowly again. Sören groaned into him, and his hands reached out to take Maglor's hands.  
  
_I love doing this to you,_  Sören spoke into his mind.  
  
It was one thing to hear Sören broadcasting, it was another thing to have Sören use telepathy directly. He'd known, when he saw Sören use telekinesis, that telepathy was probably another of his gifts. But here it was, and it felt as intimate as the licking inside him.  
  
"You're so good at that." Maglor shuddered, hands slipping out of Sören's to clutch his head, fist his curls as he arched to him, not able to keep from working his hips, gently thrusting against Sören's face. "Gods, Sören..."  
  
"Mmmmmmm." Sören narrowed his eyes, and his fingers walked up from the sensitive place between balls and ass, to run over his balls, over his cock. "I love you so much," Sören breathed before sticking his tongue back in.  
  
"Sören. Take me.  _Please._ " He found himself reverting to his native tongue, much as his beloved had yesterday. " _Puitho nin._ "  
  
With a few last licks and a growl, Sören pulled back, and rose up. His cock was hard, looking almost angry, glistening with precum. Maglor watched hungrily as Sören moved the bottle of lube with his mind, pouring lubricant over his cock, and then directly into Maglor's passage. Maglor gasped and shivered at the feel of the liquid shooting inside him, cock throbbing at the promise of feeling Sören shoot inside him the same way, soon.  
  
Sören grabbed Maglor's hips, the tip of his cock pressed against the entrance. "You ready?"  
  
"Please,  _melindo_. Now."  
  
Sören began to push into him, slowly. Though Maglor had been fucked by Vanimórë a few times since arriving in Iceland, he was still  _tight_ , and flinched a little at the burn.  
  
"Am I hurting you? Do I need to stop?"  
  
"Keep going. I need this."  
  
Sören took his hands. "Just breathe deep, and push out. That's it."  
  
Pushing out as Sören pushed in, made it easier, though the first minute was still excruciating. Maglor knew it wouldn't feel like this forever. When Sören bottomed out in him, they moaned together, Sören's fingertips lovingly tracing the scar on his palm.  
  
"You feel so right," Sören breathed.  
  
" _Gi melin._ "  
  
"Oh, love." Sören knew what he was saying without having to be told, across their bond. "I love you too."  
  
Sören took his first thrust. A few thrusts and... " _Sören._ " Maglor's breath hitched as the ring in the head of Sören's cock rubbed his prostate just right. The bead in the ring... Maglor shuddered. "Oh, gods, Sören..."  
  
"Like that?"  
  
" _Yes._ "  
  
Sören went slowly, to get him acclimated to the fullness, and then when Maglor was adjusted and it was only pleasure, no pain, Sören kept it slow, teasing, a wicked look on his face. But he couldn't hold back for long, nor did Maglor want him to. At last, his legs were on Sören's shoulders, Sören slamming into him, balls slapping against him, a predatory look on his face, making delicious deep growling, grunting,  _male_  noises. Maglor loved the feeling of surrender, both his own surrender to Sören, and watching Sören give into his animal side, going from being more submissive to  _taking_  what he wanted. It was like being ravished by fire, and it stoked Maglor's own fire, cold for too long. The passion between them was all-consuming. Their voices filled the room, wild and loud and unmistakably the sound of sex, hungry and wanton. Sören drove into him harder and harder.  
  
" _Ai,_  Sören,  _puitho nin, pathro nin._ "  
  
"God..." Sören grit his teeth; Maglor could feel him trying to hold back.  
  
Maglor's hands reached out, stroking Sören's flesh where he could reach. Sören's response to that was to seize his cock, though Maglor was well on his way to coming just from Sören's movements inside him and that ring  _rubbing rubbing rubbing_.  
  
" _Ritho! No lagor!_ "  
  
"Fuck." Sören worked his hips as hard and fast as he could, and made a deep, primal grunt. "I'm so close..."  
  
"So am I." Maglor's voice shook. "So close, love. I want to feel you come inside me."  
  
"I want you to come all over me."  
  
A few more thrusts, and they were  _right there._  "Oh god." Sören was trembling. "Oh god..." Panting. "Oh god... oh my fucking god..."  
  
" _Yes,_  Sören. Come with me,  _now_."  
  
" _Macalaurë, elskan!_ "  
  
"Sören,  _melindo_ , Sören, Hells, I love you..."  
  
Maglor spent over Sören's chest and stomach, feeling Sören's seed erupt inside him. They cried out together, almost sobbing, and after a few more thrusts Sören stopped, gasping for breath. The throbbing pleasure was so intense it almost  _hurt_ , contraction after contraction, deeper and deeper into bliss.  
  
Maglor took Sören's hands and pulled his mind into the Song. Their threads weaving together, aching silver and shimmering green-purple aurora, burning into a pure white supernova. Coming out the other side, falling through storm clouds, lightning, and then into dawn, shades of rose gold tinged with peach, pale pink and lavender, as soft and warm as the storm had been white-hot and diamond-hard. They were floating together, flying, everything bright and sweet.  
  
Sören was crying, softly. "Oh my fucking god," he choked out.  
  
Maglor sat up gingerly, and held Sören. They clung, as the last waves of their orgasm continued to throb. Held Sören's mind's eye in the Song as long as he could, wanting him to see, feel,  _hear_ , at last, their place in the Music.  
  
They rocked together. "Sören." He felt Sören's hands in his hair. "Sören. My love."  
  
"That..." Sören's breath caught again, and he was shaking a little. "That was... incredible. That..."  
  
"That was us." Maglor looked up, and stroked Sören's face. "That was what we'd been missing for five years."  
  
Sören's arms tightened around him. "I love you." Sören was breathing hard, not just from the exertion of sex, but the awe that Maglor could feel across their bond. " _Takk_ , Macalaurë,  _ástin mín._ "  
  
  
_  
  
  
After he saw to Auli's food, water, and walk, Maglor arrived at Sören and Dooku's cabin. For awhile they just sat and relaxed together on the couch, Sören cuddling between them as they watched more episodes of  _Metalocalypse_ , drinking lemonade. Then Dooku grilled fish outside while Sören and Maglor worked together on a salad in the kitchen, every now and again stealing kisses.  
  
They ate outside, drinking wine. The first part of their meal was spent in companionable silence and then Dooku finally broke the silence; it was clear he had been gathering his thoughts, wanting to make sure he said the right things.  
  
"I see some congratulations are in order. I want happiness for you both, and if you're happy, I'm happy."  
  
They clinked glasses. Maglor said, "You're sure I'm not stepping on any toes -"  
  
"I would like to have tomorrow evening with my husband, if you don't mind," Dooku said, looking at Sören, who nodded. "We have a bit of an arrangement between us, and..."  
  
"I understand." Maglor would miss him, but he knew going into this that Sören and Dooku had an established relationship and he had been loath to interfere from the beginning.  
  
"We should probably work out a time-sharing schedule, at some point," Dooku said, "in the interest of fairness to all three of us, so there's no toe-stepping."  
  
"I agree."  
  
"Plus if Sören is going to continue to see Van..."  
  
Maglor cringed at that - he still didn't like Sören and Vanimórë together, even though he knew Vanimórë was correct and it was, in fact, not on the same level of what he and Sören had, and what Sören and Dooku had. But that was also Sören's decision to make, and after what Sören had been through with that filth Justin, attempting to control him was the last thing he wanted to do.  
  
"I haven't decided that yet," Sören said. "Van and I still have to talk about things, and we haven't talked yet."  
  
"Soon," Dooku said. "You should talk to him soon."  
  
"I know."  
  
Maglor felt himself continuing to bristle at the mention of Vanimórë, and he wanted to put Dooku's mind at ease. Plus, he had grown fond of the old man -  _too fond_  - and he'd missed their friendship. He realized in hindsight Dooku was probably stepping back a bit because he was gifted and sensed that Sören and Maglor needed space for this all to happen, something that he was grateful to him for. But he missed spending time with Dooku as well. So, attempting to continue to defuse the situation and put Dooku's mind at ease, Maglor cut in, "Perhaps if Sören goes on another date with him, we can spend time with each other. I think our continued friendship is more important now than it was before, with us sharing a partner."  
  
Dooku kept his expression neutral, and gave a small nod. "All right."  
  
"And not just then, either, maybe we could take Auli for a walk tomorrow when I'm done at the studio, before you have your night with Sören?"  
  
"That would be fine."  
  
_That would be_  fine.  _That's an odd choice of words._  Maglor did not empathically sense Dooku being jealous, per se - protective, yes, understandable after he'd broken Sören's heart five years ago, but there was no broadcasting of  _keep your hands off my mate_  as far as he could tell, though he knew Dooku kept a very tight shield around his mind. Maglor sipped his wine and pondered this. Dooku had been weirdly quiet and distant towards him since the night he'd come over for dinner a couple weeks ago while Sören was out with Vanimórë and he'd played music and had too much to drink.  
  
Maglor kept from facepalming.  _I said or did something when I was drunk, and it made things weird with him, didn't it._  
  
Now was not the time to try to probe, and probably discussing it tomorrow while they were walking Auli would be too soon - just like Dooku had given Maglor and Sören space to become friends again, to make the big emotional hurdles easier, Maglor would do the same and have at least one "normal" visit with his friend before bringing up the night he was drunk and if he'd said or done anything that made Dooku ill at ease.  
  
"You guys definitely should spend more time together," Sören said, putting a hand on one hand on Maglor's shoulder and reaching out across the table to put a hand on Dooku's shoulder. "You both need a friend." Sören gave Maglor a look, then. "When I tell you that you deserve to be loved and cared about, I really mean it. It's important. None of us have to do this alone anymore. We're family now."  
  
Maglor smiled and leaned over to kiss Sören's cheek. "You're such a sweet boy."  
  
Dooku reached across the table to stroke Sören's other cheek, smiling at him fondly. His expression returned to neutral as his gaze met Maglor's again, and he downed more wine.  
  
_Yes, I really put my foot in it, somehow. Well... I'll find out what's going on, eventually._  
  
"Actually..." Sören stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Maglor, why don't you come over and have dinner with us again on Thursday night?"  
  
"If Nicolae doesn't mind -"  
  
"I don't mind," Dooku said. But he did not meet Maglor's eyes.  
  
A few more minutes passed, and Sören finally said, "I want to thank both of you for being so reasonable about sharing me, and I'm sure you can work something out like adults -"  
  
Dooku nodded. Then he took Sören's hands across the table, stroking them. He finally looked at Maglor, and then back at Sören. "As I have said, your happiness is important to me, Sören. But also..." Dooku looked at Maglor, again. "As you know, I will be seventy-one this December. I am in excellent health, but that is not a guarantee I am going to live forever." He took a deep breath. "When Sören brought up wanting to open our relationship... I'd been worrying about my mortality again, and how he would take things when I am gone. Sören has... some mental health issues, I assume you know that."  
  
"Yes, he told me about that." Maglor nodded.  _I can also feel it, how close to the edge he's walked._  
  
"Suddenly, there was a convenient, elegant solution at hand to the problem of my mortality, and not wanting Sören to be alone when I am dying, and after I am gone. So I want you to promise me that you will take care of Sören when the time comes." Dooku's eyes misted. "Even if I had an objection to your relationship - which I do not, really -" Yet Maglor could feel some sort of pang there, that he otherwise couldn't probe what about, where it came from, with the shielding in place. "- I want what's best for Sören, and what's best for him is to have a lover so he has a source of comfort and support and companionship with the inevitable on its way."  
  
That was one of the most unselfish things Maglor had heard in his life, and  _it makes me love thee all the more._ Maglor took a deep breath, fighting off the urge to give Dooku a hug, fighting off the urge to tell him how he  _felt_. He didn't want to make their friendship awkward - he got the feeling he probably let something slip about his feelings that night and that was why Dooku was avoiding him. He wasn't sure. They'd have to talk about it.  
  
Of course, such feelings were not cast aside so easily.  
  
It wouldn't just be Sören who would need comfort when Dooku went. Maglor was  _attached_.  
  
"Jesus Christ, Nico." Sören wiped tears from his eyes. "Could we not with the death and dying talk."  
  
"I'm sorry to bring that up again, sweetheart. But I felt he needed some further explanation why I am being so 'reasonable' about this, when there are many in my place who might not like sharing."  
  
"I... appreciate that you're looking out for Sören," Maglor said. "I came here not just to find closure after what happened - which, as it turned out, meant re-opening our relationship - but when I heard Sören was married, I needed to make sure it was to someone worthy of him. You are a good man, Nicolae."  _If thou wert not, I would have killed thee and made it look like an accident._  "And I swore, yesterday, that I would not leave Sören again. I do not swear oaths lightly, or really, at all, anymore."  
  
Dooku nodded. "I'm glad to hear that."  
  
Sören grinned. "Hi glad to hear that..."  
  
Dooku glared, and Sören laughed and booped his nose.  
  
  
  
_  
  
  
Maglor left shortly after dinner, saying he'd be giving Auli a bath and then working on some music. Sören had Dooku sit with him on the couch, needing to feel Dooku close to him after the absence last night and being gone most of the day. For awhile Sören played Stardew Valley and Dooku worked on his novel, on their respective laptops, and then they put them down and curled up on each other, Dooku petting him.  
  
"I'd offer to make it up to you tonight but I'm still sore from yesterday," Sören said.  
  
"I thought as much, I've noticed the way you've been moving, and sitting in particular." Dooku patted him.  
  
"Tomorrow night, though, when it's just us." Sören waggled his eyebrows. "It's  _on._ "  
  
"I look forward to it." Dooku tilted Sören's face to his and kissed his forehead.  
  
"Do you want a blowjob, though?" Sören raised an eyebrow.  
  
Dooku also raised an eyebrow. "You were intimate with Macalaurë earlier at the studio -"  
  
"How did you know that -"  
  
"Our Force bond, and I can smell it on you. Anyway... I suppose even after all this time, I'm surprised by your appetite. Pleasantly surprised, but..."  
  
"If anything, it seems to be stronger now." With that, Sören gave a little growl, nibbling Dooku's neck, who groaned in response. "The more I have, the more I want." Sören started kissing Dooku's neck, and husked, "I want to taste that beautiful cock of yours. Now."  
  
They found their way to the bed, and stripped. Sören was hard now too, and they spent a few minutes with Sören on his back, the two holding each other, kissing, rubbing their cocks together. Then Sören shoved Dooku on his back with a growl, and climbed over him, straddling Dooku's shoulders as he lowered his face between Dooku's legs. They feasted on each other, sucking, rimming, to not one, but two orgasms, Sören telling him he was "still hungry" after the first one.  
  
They cuddled together after the second climax, Dooku laughing as he pet Sören. "You are incredible," he said. "I feel like the luckiest man in the world, right now."  
  
Sören smiled and rained little kisses over his face, rubbing noses with him before taking his mouth in a sweet, lingering kiss. "I can't wait to see how you feel tomorrow night."  
  
"God, you spoil me."  
  
"You deserve to be spoiled,  _elskan._  I know you say you want my happiness above all, but Nico... I want your happiness too." Sören's index finger traced a heart shape over Dooku's chest and then he leaned in to kiss over his heart, before resting his head there, nuzzling the silver pelt. "I love you so much. When we make love, it's not just physical, to me. It's giving you ecstasy. It's wanting to make you feel  _good_. Feel  _alive._  I've been through so much shit in my life, you have too, but there is still goodness and beauty and wonder in the world, still ways to find happiness... and when we come, when we touch that  _fire_ , that passion, the heartbeat of creation... the pain isn't there anymore. It cleanses us, for a time. All we have is each other, in that moment, and in that moment, we are infinite." Sören's voice dropped to a husky whisper. "I love to feel infinite with you, my soulmate."  
  
"Dammit, Sören, that's beautiful." Dooku's eyes misted, and he stroked Sören's face. "How are you so young and yet so deep?"  
  
"...I've been drilled plenty of times."  
  
Dooku facepalmed, and shook with silent laughter. "Dear. God."  
  
Sören grinned, and then pulled Dooku close, rocking him. "Just remember, if you're ever too overwhelmed by those profound philosophy moments..." Sören used the Force to bring over the puffin hat and put it on his head.  
  
Dooku laughed harder. "Why are you like this."  
  
"Because." Sören kissed the tip of his nose. He took the puffin hat off and used the Force to return it to its place atop the mantle. "We need it."  
  
They continued holding each other. Dooku started to doze off a little in Sören's arms, and Sören's mind drifted. He had a vision of laying in the grass with Dooku in the different form he'd seen in brief flashes before, young with long dark hair, tangled together in the warm sunshine, covered in each other's seed, wearing it proudly, almost  _defiantly_. Glittering silver-blue, eyes like diamonds meeting his, shining with love, before closing to give a tender kiss. Sören heard himself speak to the man in his arms.  _There is no sin in this, Ñolo. We were_  made  _for this. We are glorious._  
  
"Nico?"  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"You... believe in past lives?"  
  
"Perhaps." Dooku's voice had the faraway sound of being half-asleep. "I think too many people use the concept as a crutch, fancying that they were Cleopatra, when it is who you are here and now that matters. But I do believe souls can be reborn, yes."  
  
"You think we had any past lives together?"  
  
Dooku's eyes opened, warm dark chocolate, but there was the same sweetness in them as there had been in his vision. "Yes." He kissed Sören softly. "I do."  
  
Sören rubbed his head and patted him, and Dooku fell back asleep. Soon, Sören was asleep as well.  
  
  
_

 

 _Wednesday_  
  
  
It rained again on Wednesday. Sören had ceramics in the morning, and sketching in the afternoon. Maglor had his guitar classes. Ceramics was always a joy to Sören, and feeling in "the zone" creatively got his libido flowing, intensified when he heard Maglor playing the guitar, working on an original composition between classes.  
  
The years without his other soulmate had made him like a starving man, and suddenly, here was a feast. And Sören's anticipation of being with Dooku in the evening did not help, fantasizing about his husband a dozen different ways, all of them delicious.  
  
_God, I'm turning into a sex addict._  It was all Sören could do to not stop the sketching class and interrupt Maglor's guitar class to ravish him right then and there.  
  
Instead, he waited until their classes were done. Sören hovered at the door of Maglor's classroom, and smiled when Maglor looked up at him.  
  
"I heard you playing earlier... a new song?"  
  
"Would you like to hear it?"  
  
Sören sat, and Maglor played an instrumental for him. It was beautiful, melancholy minor chords that gave way to a more uplifting set of major chords, like dark clouds pierced by light. Sören got teared up.

It was the song he'd heard in the vision Maglor showed them, of their place in the Music.  He had finally manifested it here.  
  
It did nothing to discourage his libido.  
  
Maglor got up to put his guitar back in the case, and when his back was turned and Sören saw that firm, shapely ass in those jeans...  
  
"Shall we head back?" Maglor held out his hand.  
  
Sören took it, feeling the electricity between them. They locked up the studio and stepped outside - it had stopped raining though everything was misty, the grass sparkling with raindrops like diamonds. There was another rainbow. They paused for a moment to admire it, and then Maglor turned Sören's head to his and gave him a sweet little kiss.  
  
That did it. Sören found himself  _pulling Maglor by his hair_  around to the back of the studio, where there was the shed for the kiln and a small yard space with picnic tables in the grass. It wasn't quite private, but there was no one nearby to see them. Sören kissed him hard and hungry, and the two tumbled together to the wet grass, Sören pulling off his shirt, feverish. Maglor reached for Sören's belt and began undoing Sören's jeans, laughing softly.  
  
"You're insatiable, you know."  
  
"Is that a complaint?"  
  
Maglor slid Sören's hand to the hard bulge in his own jeans. "Hells, no."  
  
They got naked, throwing their clothing off to the side, and Sören used the Force to pull the lube out of his jeans pocket. He poured lube over Maglor's cock, stroking it to work it in as he leaned down to kiss him. "I love you," Sören husked between kisses.  
  
"I love you." Maglor grabbed Sören's hips, and pulled him, groaning as he watched Sören sink down. When they were fully joined, they kissed again.  
  
Sören rode him slowly at first, wanting to savor that sweet connection between them, feeling  _complete_  after all this time. They continued to kiss, pet each other's hair, run their fingers over each other's bodies. Maglor leaned up to lick and suckle Sören's nipples, gently tugging the rings with his teeth, fingers playing with one ring as his mouth worked on the other. The sensation - and the heat in Maglor's eyes, the look on his face as he enjoyed Sören's body - made it that much better, as did cradling him as he feasted, rocking him gently,  _comforting_  him.  _Not alone anymore,_  Sören spoke into his mind.  _Never alone again, so long as I walk with you._    
  
Sören played with his hair, glamoured while they were out in the open and yet still so beautiful. Just Maglor's hair turned him on, Sören not able to get enough of running his fingers through it, worshiping him.  
  
And then, at last, Sören started to ride a little harder, a little faster. Sören leaned down to kiss and lick Maglor's own nipples, knowing what he liked, rubbing one as his lips seized the other. Sören went back and forth between them over and over again as Maglor arched, panting, trembling. Then Sören reached, the fingers of his free hand working into Maglor's passage, finding the prostate to finger-fuck him as he continued to ride Maglor's cock and make love to his nipples.  
  
Maglor rolled Sören onto his back with a growl, propped Sören's legs on his shoulders, and took him hard. Sören's screams rang out into the sky, like a wild bird. They were both crying out, and there was a vague worry in the back of Sören's head that someone would call the police. Before that could happen, they exploded together, and more rays of sunshine streamed through the clouds, everything golden, with the smell of petrichor in the air to warn of more rain coming soon. Here and now, they had made it rain in a different sense, Maglor covered in Sören's seed, and Sören could feel plenty of Maglor's seed inside him.  
  
"God.  _Wow._ " Sören laughed, feeling euphoria.  
  
"Hells, Sören." Maglor just held him for a moment. "That was amazing." He kissed Sören hard and husked, "You. Are amazing."  
  
They got dressed and got in the car. Sören made a little purring sound of contentment, and Maglor reached out to skritch Sören's beard like he was a cat, making Sören giggle. Then Sören took the fingers and kissed them; it was Maglor's bad hand, and Sören pressed the palm to his lips for another kiss.  
  
"Sören." Maglor's voice was husky with raw emotion.  
  
Sören folded Maglor's hand into his and pressed it against his heart.  
  
"Dammit Sören, I don't know whether to cry or to pull this car over and go for another round."  
  
Sören laughed. "Now who's insatiable?"  
  
"Gods. I'd ask what's gotten into me, but you'd say 'my cock'..."  
  
Sören snorted. "It's like you know me."  
  
" _Yeah._ " Maglor shook his head. "You butt."  
  
"I wouldn't mind going for another round but it would be hard to stop. And I promised Nico -"  
  
"I know." Maglor nodded. "I wouldn't be able to stop, either, we'd be at it for the next few hours." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  
  
"Were you like this, with the other mortals?"  
  
"No." Maglor's eyes opened and met his; Sören knew he was telling the truth. "There are only three other people who I've been like this with. One is Van." Sören could hear the unspoken  _Damn him to the Hells_  at the end of that sentence and wondered what the story was behind that. "The other two were... my father and uncle."  
  
"Right, I keep forgetting that was a thing."  
  
"I still can't believe you're... OK with that."  
  
"Like I said, if y'all were human I think I might be bothered by it more. But it's different for Elves...?"  
  
"We were still damned for it. For loving anyone of our own gender, incest or not. Manwë in  _particular_  has a problem with that. He had quite a problem with my father."  
  
"Well..." Sören took a deep breath. "You were consenting adults, right?"  
  
"Correct. Fingolfin didn't touch me until I was of age. Even then, I had to throw myself at him." Maglor flushed.  
  
"To be honest?" Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls. "When I was reading the Silm, I, ah... I shipped Fëanor and Fingolfin. My mental image of them was so hot."  
  
"Gods, Sören, you should have  _seen_  them together. They  _were_  hot. They were so hot together it drove me crazy. It wasn't just that they were aesthetically beautiful together, though there was that. It was the way they loved each other, if that makes sense at all."  
  
"It does. The way two people who are really into each other is hot, regardless of what they look like. The energy."  
  
" _Yes._ "  
  
"I get it."  
  
"So... yes, Fingolfin was my first, and later I was intimate with my father, and with both of them at the same time, though I continued to enjoy them individually as well, and they each other, of course. And then..." Maglor sighed and looked away; Sören felt grief across their bond. The raindrops started to fall once more.  
  
"What happened? If you can talk about it."  
  
"I got married." Maglor looked back at Sören.  
  
"You mean you actually got for real married, none of this I-have-an-arranged-marriage-and-have-to-leave-you-now bullshit you fed me five years ago."  
  
Maglor cringed. "Actually got for real married, yes, Sören."  
  
"This is... your baby mama?"  
  
Maglor facepalmed. Sören could hear the  _I have lived thousands of years, I am the second son of the High King of the Noldor, and the man I love listens to rap music and uses its slang like "baby mama"_  across their bond. Sören tried not to laugh, feeling how much pain he was otherwise in at this entire subject.  
  
"Yes, Sören, it was my son's mother. I was obligated to marry  _someone_ , per our people's Laws, so I did, though I did not love her. I cared for her as a person, I considered her a friend, but that is a very different thing entirely. Anyway... it was at that point that I tried to distance myself from the 'sin', from the 'sickness', to be a good husband. Except it just made things worse. I ended up resenting her, which adds insult to injury. And then my father died. I had taken that Oath, and she got in my way when I was having a moment of literal insanity. That was... the end of that."  
  
"Did you kill her?"  
  
"It would have been kinder if I did. No, Sören, that was how my son was conceived."  
  
"Jesus."  
  
There was a long silence. When they got into the village, Maglor spoke again. "Fingolfin and I reached out to each other again in our mutual grief over Fëanor. And then he fell, as well, fighting Morgoth. I was rather devastated."  
  
Sören could feel it, or rather, he could feel a small taste of it, knowing Maglor was holding back the flood for both their sakes. Just what little he could feel, it was like not being able to breathe, like having all the life drained out of him, a fire dying to just embers.  
  
"I wanted to die, later, when Morgoth captured me. Vanimórë... interfered."  
  
"Wait,  _that's_  his name? Vanimórë?"  
  
"...Yes."  
  
"Huh. So he's an Elf...?"  
  
"He's..."  _A Gods-damned_  a-bunch-of-Elven-swears Sören didn't understand  _and I still want to_  kill  _him._  Sören blinked at that oncoming broadcast, and then Maglor looked away, knowing that Sören had felt it. "He's a lot," Maglor said, looking out the window.  
  
"A... lot."  
  
"He should explain it to you himself, I think, just like he left it to me to explain myself instead of him telling you."  
  
Sören pursed his lips.  
  
"But, since that was... over and done," Maglor said, "it's been... well..." Maglor frowned. "I've had sex, though as I told you, not since ancient Rome, before I met you, and it was never the same, even when I cared about the person I lay with. You were the strongest, deepest love I felt, since those ancient days. A return of the passion I had tasted, with Fëanor and Fingolfin."  
  
"You told me several times, when we were together back then, that I remind you of your father. Now I have a better understanding of why."  
  
"It wasn't just  _that_ , but yes, the sex was part of it."  _And like I left you, I had refused him, and it broke his heart. He died before I could make things right._  
  
Sören played with a strand of Maglor's hair, stroked his face. "Macalaurë,  _ástin mín._  I'm so sorry."  
  
"I'm sorry too... I shouldn't burden you with this right now." They were turning onto their street.  
  
"You clearly needed to talk about it, and... I'm glad you did. It helps me understand you."  
  
They pulled in front of the cabin. Sören leaned over and kissed him hard, and then Maglor kissed his forehead. "Thank you," Maglor husked.  
  
"For?"  
  
"Being you." Maglor gave him a soft, sweet kiss.  
  
Sören climbed out of the car, before he wouldn't be able to stop himself from dragging Maglor off for another round, aching to comfort him. "I'll see you tomorrow, já?"  
  
"Yes. You have any preferences for dinner?"  
  
"Um... your  _paella_  would be wonderful."  
  
"OK, I'll bring over what's needed to make that. Have a good evening, Sören."  
  
"I love you."  
  
"I know." Their eyes met. "I love you too."  
  
Sören blew a kiss, and then was off to the cabin.  
  
  
_

  
  
After Sören had been back home for a bit, Dooku went with Maglor to walk Auli. When he came back, Sören greeted him at the door with a hug and kiss, clinging.  
  
Dooku kissed him back, and what was meant to be a sweet "welcome home" kiss turned passionate. Sören started to unbutton Dooku's shirt, and Dooku groaned into the kiss, beneath his touch.  
  
"I see you're already hungry."  
  
"Like you haven't been thinking about it yourself, old man."  
  
"I've been thinking about it all day, though I was going to feed you properly first."  
  
"Dinner can wait. I want you  _now._ " The thought of Fëanor and Fingolfin together, and Maglor with the two of them, was driving Sören crazy. Dooku, himself, was driving Sören crazy, his tall, lean and powerful silver fox with that deep, cultured voice that made him melt. And  _God, that chest hair..._  Sören moaned at the sight of it exposed underneath the undone buttons, leaning in to start licking it, thrusting up against him like he was in heat.  
  
Dooku and Sören stumbled to the bed, kissing, not able to take their hands off each other, shucking their clothes along the way. When they got to the bed, Sören used the Force to retrieve the leash and collar from the bedtable, and got on his knees. Dooku put the collar around Sören's neck, clipped the leash in, and stroked his face. "Good boy," Dooku whispered.  
  
Sören's lips wrapped around Dooku's cock, and swallowed it down hungrily. Dooku clutched Sören's head as he sucked, and Sören slurped at him with passion and enthusiasm, rubbing his tongue with his mouth full, head bobbing back and forth. When Dooku had enough, before he could come in Sören's mouth, he pulled out, and Sören took a last few licks at the glistening cock, lapping around the head, tonguing the slit, making a show of collecting the precum. Dooku tugged on the leash, and led Sören to the bed.  
  
"I'm of a mind to tease the life out of you," Dooku told him.  
  
"You can do whatever you want to me, but I'm desperate for that cock of yours now... you could take me now and do a second round more slowly." Sören bit his lower lip.  
  
Dooku reached for their lube with the Force. He lubed up his cock, and before he could pour lube into Sören's ass, Sören said, "I'm... um... already prepared." He turned around and stuck his ass out to show him, the stretched hole, Maglor's cum leaking out of him.  
  
Dooku swatted Sören's ass, and Sören let out a moan. Then he whimpered as he felt Dooku start rubbing his cock into the crack of his ass, teasing him a little anyway. "Prepared, are you?"  
  
"Mmm. So you could fuck me good."  
  
"You can't control yourself, can you?" Another swat.  
  
"No." Sören chuckled. "I can't."  
  
Another swat. "You naughty boy." Another slap at Sören's ass, and Sören moaned.  
  
"You like how naughty I am, don't you?"  
  
Dooku pushed into him. "Yes."  
  
He grabbed a fistful of Sören's curls, and began to thrust, smacking Sören's ass now and again. Sören moaned, working his hips, thrusting back at him. "God, yes, give me that cock..."  
  
"You. Are. So wanton." Dooku slapped Sören's ass again.  
  
"At least I was ready. All lubed up... and not just with lube, but with his cum, too..."  
  
Dooku  _drove_  into him, savage. For a moment all they both could do was grunt and groan and gasp, their flesh slapping together obscenely, the bed rocking against the wall. Sören fisted the bedsheets, trembling at the power of those thrusts. And then he felt it across their Force bond - Dooku was getting aroused at the thought of Maglor's cum on his cock.  
  
Dooku was having mental images of Sören and Maglor fucking, and  _he liked it._  
  
"That's it," Sören purred. "Fuck me hard like he fucked me the other night. Like he gave it to me over and over again." Sören looked over his shoulder. "You would have loved watching that, wouldn't you?"  
  
The  _surge of heat_  across their bond. Dooku let out a little moan.  
  
"Wouldn't you, Nico. You want to watch us fuck."  
  
Dooku leaned over him, fucking him harder, teeth in the sweet spot where neck and shoulder met. Sören gasped and shuddered, loving it. "I take it that's a yes."  
  
" _Yes._ "  _I won't deny it._  
  
And then Sören saw it.  
  
"You want to do more than watch. You want him, too."  
  
" _Fuck._ " Dooku let out a little gasp, continuing to drive it home.  
  
"Mmmmmmm. I would love that, both of you on me at once..." Sören turned his face to kiss him, nipped his lower lip. "Would love to watch the two of you together."  
  
Dooku shoved him down and pounded him into the mattress. A moment later - a wild, primal moment that was pure animal heat - they climaxed together, crying out. Sören could feel Dooku coming hard inside him, shooting and shooting and shooting, and it made Sören have a full body orgasm, fingers and toes curling, feeling like he was melting into a sea of light.  
  
They both lay there for awhile, Dooku covering Sören's back, holding each other's hands. They drifted in and out of consciousness, shattered by the intensity of their mutual orgasm, and then Dooku pulled out, and rolled over, and Sören rolled into him, snuggling against him.  
  
Dooku needed a nap after that, and Sören sketched for awhile, the delicious sight of his husband debauched on the bed. When Dooku finally got up it was almost seven PM, and he quietly set about getting dinner ready, grilling steaks outside.  
  
"You still have on the leash," Dooku remarked as they sat out at the picnic table.  
  
"I'm yours for the evening, love."  
  
Dooku looked down, face flushed.  
  
But they didn't get back to lovemaking right away. There was an awkward silence that hung over them, as if some sort of line had been crossed. Sören finally went there after the dishes were done.  
  
"It's OK, you know," Sören said. "I'm not jealous or anything. Quite the opposite, I meant what I sai -"  
  
"I know." Dooku pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. He sipped his tea, and then buried his face in his hands for a minute.  
  
"Nico. What's wrong."  
  
"I just... don't think he'd be interested in me."  
  
"Don't even tell me you're going to say you're too old for him, considering the guy is twenty thousand years old -"  
  
"Seventy is perhaps not too old by Elvish standards, but it is aged by human standards. I know that  _you_  like looking at me, but the two of you are young-looking and I..."  
  
"Oh, Nico. You know..." Sören remembered Maglor referring to Dooku with  _He's quite handsome_ , and he was about to say that.  
  
"No, Sören. Listen to me." Dooku's eyes flashed. "The last time you had a date with Van, and I went over there. Macalaurë had... a lot to drink."  
  
"OK, and...?"  
  
"He fell asleep. I put him to bed, tucked him in... a little courtesy before I left. And he talked in his sleep." Dooku cringed. "He called me 'Uncle'." Dooku shook his head. "I know he was asleep, but also,  _in vino veritas_. He thought I was his uncle... that's no doubt how he thinks of me. As his uncle."  
  
Sören's jaw dropped.  
  
"What."  
  
Sören just stared at him for a moment, then he began laughing hysterically.  
  
Dooku looked almost irate. " _What._  Are you. Laughing at."  
  
"Nico." Sören wheezed. "Nico... you... oh my god." Sören facepalmed. He remembered another conversation with Maglor.  _I haven't... loved... anyone else, after you. Except perhaps D-..._  And Maglor hadn't finished the word. "Oh my fucking god."  
  
If voices could kill, Dooku would have killed with the tone of his voice. " _What._ "  
  
"Nico." Sören tried to catch his breath. "There's... how do I say this." Sören took a few deep breaths. "You and Maglor need to talk about this."  
  
" _I am not telling him how I feel._ "  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"Because he'll reject me."  
  
"How do you know, if you don't tell him?"  
  
"We're friends. I'm not going to  _ruin_  that friendship, making things weird by  _telling him_  -"  
  
"Look. Nico." Sören met his eyes. "When I showed you some things that he told me about himself, across our Force bond, I didn't show you  _everything_ , because there was too damn much, and some of it was just TMI that I didn't think you'd be interested in. One of those things. We, ah... we have a word for it in Icelandic.  _Frændserðir._ "  
  
"That means -"  
  
"Unclefucker."  
  
It got very quiet. Dooku just stared, as if in shock.  
  
"He and his uncle, Fingolfin. They were... lovers. So Maglor calling you Uncle while he's drunk? Pretty sure that's a sign he  _is_  interested."  
  
More silence, as Dooku internally evaluated that information.  
  
"Nico, you should tell him."  
  
"I'm afraid."  
  
"Look, worst case scenario even if  _you're right_  and he rejects you? I think he'd still be willing to be friends with you. But like I said, you won't know unless you tell him, and I think you should. I'd tell you to march your arse over there  _now_  and tell him -"  
  
"I can't do it now."  
  
"Then tomorrow."  
  
Dooku started to cry. "This is too much. I..." He took a deep breath, trying to pull himself together. "When I fell in love with you, almost two years ago, after being alone my whole life, it was terrifying. And here it is again, to fall in love with a second person, it's that same terror crashing into me all over again, turning everything upside down. And you, at least I had strong indicators that you were interested. This..."  
  
"Ohhh, I think he's interested."  
  
"I can't be sure. But if Macalaurë ran away from you because he was afraid of you dying, with my age being what it is, I don't want him to run away from us, run away from  _you_  all over again. I don't want to screw things up for you -"  
  
"Nico, get your arse over here and shut the fuck up."  
  
Dooku got on the couch next to Sören, and Sören pulled him close, letting him cry. "It's OK,  _elskan_ ," Sören whispered, petting him. "It's all gonna be OK."  
  
"I can't do this. I can't..."  
  
"You can and you will, tomorrow, when he comes over for dinner."  
  
"Dammit, Sören."  
  
"Shhhhh." Sören rocked him.  
  
And for awhile Dooku lay there in Sören's arms, crying, letting it out as Sören rocked and pet him, and at last Sören put the leash back in his hand. "Here. Let me distract you."  
  
They rose to their feet, and walked to the bed. They climbed onto the bed together, and Sören lay on his back, arching to him. "About that teasing the life out of me..." Sören used the Force to pull out the silk scarves. "Now's a good time, já?"


	33. Three Is A Magic Number

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The other Pr0n That Was Promised. <3

**Three Is A Magic Number**

 

 _Thursday, August 1st_  
  
Between classes, Maglor went out to bring back lunch for Sören, as Sören continued to work on the sketch he'd started of Dooku sprawled on the bed in post-coital bliss. He was thinking about turning this sketch into a painting, his mind's eye consumed by its vision. He was so focused on what he was doing that he jumped when he heard a small knock on the door to his art room. It was too soon for Maglor to have come back yet - and it wasn't Maglor.  
  
"Vanimórë." Sören put down his pencil.  
  
"I see Maglor told you my name."  
  
Sören folded his arms. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I came to see you. I knew from your class schedule you'd probably be free right about now. Unless now is a bad time."  
  
"No, by all means. Sit down." Sören waved his hand and pulled out a chair without touching it. He'd kept his power concealed from Vanimórë before, but now there was no longer any need for that. And Sören felt that making a display of his power sent a message, that he was not one to be fucked with. He felt a little wary of Vanimórë knowing that he'd been lied to, and knowing that Maglor hated him for some reason, and until he and Vanimórë had cleared the air...  
  
Nonetheless, Sören still desired him. He was already feeling a little aroused working on the sketch of his husband deliciously debauched after sex, and  _goddammit why do you have to be so_  bloody  _attractive._  Sören licked his lips without meaning to.  
  
"I'm going to cut to the chase," Sören said. "I want to know why you're here. And I don't mean  _here_ , at my studio, I mean fucking  _here_ , in Bumfuck, Iceland."  
  
"To help Maglor find his way again." Vanimórë lifted his chin. "And you. And Dooku."  
  
"See, that's..." Sören picked up his pencil and shook it at him. "That's what bothers me about this equation. You and Maglor have some kind of ancient history, I get that, although he hates you -"  
  
"He does." Vanimórë didn't deny it. "It doesn't keep him from wanting me, and the conflict adds a certain amount of... spice... when we are intimate."  
  
_I bet._  Sören shivered, imagining it, feeling himself growing hard.  _Focus._  "Why does he hate you?"  
  
"I wouldn't let him die, when he craved death." Vanimórë's gaze held his. "I  _couldn't_  let him die."  
  
Sören wanted to say  _that doesn't make any goddamn sense, usually people are grateful to have their lives saved_ , but he remembered that Maglor was not a mortal, and had been carrying thousands of years of grief with him and had made himself stay alive anyway, and if he had finally gotten to a place of being ready to die, Vanimórë preventing that from happening probably felt like an insult to his pride. Not to mention having to keep going on, continuing to carry that grief, as time marched forward.  
  
"I see."  
  
"I gave him back the desire to live, when all hope was lost. And yet there has been so little hope in his life since then." Vanimórë gestured to Sören. "Until now."  
  
"When we met in the club in 2015..." Sören shook his head. "That wasn't random, was it."  
  
"No, Sören, it was not."  
  
"And that..." Sören scratched his head. "How did you know where and how to find me?"  
  
"Let's just say for the time being that you and I are acquainted, in a sense, in another place than this. I would recognize you anywhere."  _I am surprised Maglor does not,_  hung at the end of the sentence and Sören wondered what  _that_  was about. "It was not just Maglor's fire on the verge of being extinguished."  
  
"Yeah. That's just..." Sören recoiled. "That's the part I don't like about this. I can see why you'd want to help Maglor, maybe, but  _me_? I'm just a mortal. Most people don't go around  _helping_  people without ulterior motives, even philanthropists like yourself -"  
  
"I'm not most people."  _Neither are you._  
  
"No shit." Sören frowned. "You're an Elf...?"  
  
"Half-Elf."  
  
"What's the other half?"  
  
"I'm the son of Sauron."  
  
Sören's pencil dropped on the floor.  
  
"My father is a monster. My 'ulterior motive', if you could call it that, is cleaning up some of the damage he's caused. The Valar helped create that monster. The Valar themselves are monsters. I mean to perform damage control on their misdeeds as well, where I can, as I can. I very much  _dislike_  what has been done to Maglor and his entire family. That includes you."  
  
"So you know about my... ancestor."  
  
"I know a lot of things, Sören." A pause. "I met your mother when she was a child."  
  
"One of the few memories I have of her, she said she'd met one of the  _huldufólk_  when she was little, yes. I'm an agnostic, or was until a few days ago... so I never knew what to make of that story. But... that was you." Sören's hair stood on end. "I'd found flowers on her grave somewhat recently. That was you...?"  
  
A solemn nod.  
  
Sören was touched by that. He didn't want to be touched by that. He didn't want to like this man even more than he did, after being lied to, though he'd forgiven Maglor for lying to him, and he understood the revelation of the truth had to be carefully timed, with what it was. Sören rubbed his face, and heard Maglor's Jaguar pull in.  
  
Vanimórë stood up. "I hope you'll forgive me, and understand why the untruths were necessary, much as I disliked telling them." A little smile. "I did try to encourage Maglor to tell you things sooner than he did, but -"  
  
"Yeah." Sören nodded and also stood up. "This whole thing is like defusing a bomb, I know."  
  
"I won't lie to you about this, Sören - it's not entirely defused yet. But what remains, needs to be shown, not simply told. Soon, I promise you."  
  
"Shown...?"  
  
"Shown. Like how Maglor had to show himself unglamoured to prove who he was to you. It's much the same for the last pieces of information you need, and there is someone else better equipped than myself to show you these pieces."  
  
Sören frowned.  
  
"I do have something  _I_ , myself, can show you before... the other pieces." Vanimórë walked forward to him. "If you'd like to... resume our usual Friday night routine."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. "What are you going to show me, your cock?"  
  
A soft laugh. "That too. But something else."  
  
Sören sighed. "Not gonna lie, I've missed you."  
  
"I've missed you, beauty." Vanimórë twined a stray lock of Sören's curls around his finger, leaned in and kissed him.  
  
Sören didn't resist. He  _couldn't._  He melted into the kiss, tongues swirling, with a moan, wrapping his arms around Vanimórë.  _Fuck, I still want him._  
  
A clear of the throat outside the door to Sören's art room. Sören and Vanimórë pulled apart, breathing hard, and there was Maglor, standing there with a paper bag in his hand, looking at Vanimórë like he wanted to murder him.  
  
Maglor had brought a homemade grilled Swiss cheese on rye sandwich and a thermos of tomato soup for Sören, who once again felt self-conscious getting emotional over a simple meal, knowing Maglor remembered and cared about the little details. Maglor's expression softened as he watched Sören take the contents out of the bag and squeal his appreciation.  
  
" _Takk_ ," Sören said. "You're so sweet." He crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip.  
  
There was a surge of heat from Maglor, whose expression turned predatory. So did Vanimórë's, with a similar wave of heat. Maglor turned to glare at the other man.  
  
"I was just leaving," Vanimórë said. He looked back at Sören. "Shall I pick you up at six PM tomorrow?"  
  
"That works for me."  
  
Vanimórë headed for the door, and then Maglor caught him by the tail of his shirt. "A word," Maglor said, and marched him outside.  
  
  
_  
  
  
They spoke in Elvish.  
  
"Just because thou and Sören are back together..." Vanimórë shook his head. "Thou dost not  _own_  him. If he wants to continue seeing me, while I am still here, that is his right."  
  
"It may be his right. But I do not have to like it. And I do not."  
  
"Why art thou so... possessive? Thou never minded sharing before, Fëanor with Fingolfin -"  
  
" _That._  Was. Different. How  _dare_  thee."  
  
"Was it, though?"  
  
Maglor wanted to throttle him. He couldn't even make words in response.  
  
"I have told thee, Sören's heart is great enough to hold more than one person in it, and whatever he feels for me, it is not anywhere near the height and depth of what he feels for  _thee._  Yet,  _he was born to burn_. Thou hast tasted that passion, once more. Thou dost know it is more than enough to go around, and what he and I share will not diminish from thy experience whatsoever."  
  
"I was hoping to get some time with him myself tomorrow evening, thou  _inconsiderate twat_."  
  
"So... visit Dooku, as thou hast done before. Unless thou dost think running from thy feelings for him and avoiding him is the best way to handle things -"  
  
Maglor backhanded him. He had not spoken of those feelings to Vanimórë, he had kept them as tightly locked down as he could, and having them called out somehow hurt even worse than Vanimórë getting in the way of Maglor having another night to reconnect with Sören... as if Vanimórë were pushing him to finally do something about those feelings. Challenging him.  _Taunting_  him.  
  
He expected Vanimórë to hit him back, but Vanimórë just laughed at him, and that somehow made it all worse.  
  
"Ai, Macalaurë, it is good to see the return of that fire in thee."  
  
Maglor snarled.  
  
Vanimórë reached out to caress his face, and leaned in to kiss him. "So very good. It is as if thy fire hath been fed by another fire."  
  
"Yes. Yes, he is of my blood."  
  
Vanimórë raised an eyebrow. "Macalaurë, why dost thou not see what is so plainly in front of thee?"  
  
"Why dost thou speak to me in riddles and not  _tell_  me whatever thou art hinting at -"  
  
"Because thou should  _see_  it with thine eyes. The truth should not come from my lips, for this." Vanimórë mimed a kiss. "There are much better purposes for my lips."  
  
"Get thee gone." Maglor pointed to Vanimórë's Bentley.  
  
And then Vanimórë was dragging him in the direction of the Bentley. Maglor spluttered, trying to wrest away, and he stopped struggling when Vanimórë shoved him down in the passenger's seat.  
  
"I have a class to teach in a half-hour, I cannot leave -"  
  
But Vanimórë did not close the door. He dropped to his knees before Maglor. He smiled at the hard bulge in Maglor's jeans, and gently rubbed it. "If thou enjoy a release now, it will help thee last for later."  
  
"Later...?" Maglor was confused. "Later I am just going to have dinner with Sören and Dooku, then I am going home..."  
  
"Yes, Macalaurë Fëanorion, thou art going home."   
  
Maglor's cock was out now, and Maglor did not stop Vanimórë from giving it a few strokes before his tongue lashed the slit, lapping the precum that was already starting to flow.  
  
Nor did he stop Vanimórë from wrapping his lips around it, swallowing it down to the hilt. Maglor's hands were in Vanimórë's hair, letting out a gasp as Vanimórë began to suck, the cock gliding in and out of his mouth.  
  
"Damn thee to the  _Hells._ "  
  
Vanimórë teasingly let the cock slip out of his mouth, giving it a few slow, deliberate licks. "Is that a no? Dost thou want me to stop?"  
  
Maglor seized a fistful of Vanimórë's hair and shoved his cock down his throat.  
  
  
_  
  
  
After dropping Sören off at the cabin, Maglor returned home to get Auli - he didn't want to leave Auli alone for most of another evening - as well as the ingredients to make  _paella_  for their dinner.  
  
It had been some days since Sören had been in the family chat server, and he decided he needed to remedy that.  
  
  
**[5:01 PM] Sören:**   _crashes in_  
  
**[5:03 PM] Dagnýr:**  WHOMST  
  
**[5:05 PM] Margrét:**

(Image: the Dramatic Chipmunk reaction GIF.)

 

 **[5:06 PM] Sören:**  hi guys, sorry I've been gone for a bit  
  
**[5:07 PM] Sören:**  I had to work out some personal stuff  
  
**[5:09 PM] Dagnýr:**  You OK?  
  
**[5:10 PM] Sören:**  I'm OK now, yeah  
  
**[5:11 PM] Sören:**  I have an announcement to make  
  
**[5:13 PM] Margrét:**  :eyes:  
  
**[5:14 PM] Sören:**  Alejandro and I are back together.  
  
**[5:16 PM] Dagnýr:**  NANI  
  
**[5:18 PM] Sören:**  yes.  
  
**[5:19 PM] Margrét:**  He left you five years ago, he stomped on your heart, and you're giving him another chance?  
  
**[5:20 PM] Sören:**  we had to clear the air about A LOT of stuff  
  
**[5:20 PM] Sören:**  but I'm feeling optimistic that this time, things might work out  
  
**[5:21 PM] Frankie:**  If they don't, I will bloody STAB him.  
  
**[5:22 PM] Margrét:**  SAME.  
  
**[5:23 PM] Sören:**  you'd have to get in line behind Nico probably  
  
**[5:24 PM] Sören:**  but even he is fine with everything, which says a lot  
  
**[5:24 PM] Sören:**  anyway I can't chat long because Alejandro is coming to have dinner with us and should be here any moment now  
  
**[5:25 PM] Sören:**  just wanted to check in and let you guys know I'm OK, so you don't worry,  _Dagnýr_  
  
**[5:26 PM] Dagnýr:**  Is appreciated.  
  
Just before Sören could log off, he got a private message from Ari.  
  
**[5:28 PM] Sören:**  hej Ari like I just said on the server I gotta go  
  
**[5:30 PM] Ari:**  I know. But we don't talk much lately and I felt like I should personally congratulate you.  
  
**[5:30 PM] Ari:**  So, congratulations.  
  
**[5:31 PM] Sören:**  thanks, I missed Maglor a lot  
  
Then Sören realized, too late, what he'd just typed and hit "Enter" on, before checking it.  
  
**[5:33 PM] Sören:**  ha ha, I meant Alejandro, whoops too much Silm lately I guess  
  
**[5:34 PM] Ari:**  No.  
  
**[5:34 PM] Ari:**  You were right the first time.  
  
**[5:35 PM] Sören:**  

 

(Image: A GIF of Stone Cold Steve Austin yelling "WHAT?")

 

 **[5:36 PM] Ari:**  

(Image: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson making a "come here" gesture.)

 

**[5:38 PM] Sören:**

****

(Image: A GIF of Jessica from Suits saying "I will slap the taste out of your mouth.")

 

 **[5:39 PM] Sören:**  :knife: when I see you in Reykjavik next week? we're going to have  _a talk_  
  
**[5:40 PM] Ari:**  Yes. Yes we are.  
  
**[5:40 PM]**   **Ari:** ^___^  
  
  
Sören made a noise as he logged out of chat. His heart was racing, his ears ringing, head swirling.  _He knows. He fucking_  knows.  _He knows. He's known all along._  
  
"Everything all right?" Dooku raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Yeah, just." Sören facepalmed. " _Fuckin' Ari._ "  
  
"Oh. Please don't tell me you had a fight -"  
  
"No. He just." Sören let out a sharp exhale. Before he could explain what had just happened, there was a knock at the door.  
  
Sören had been wondering what was taking Maglor so long, and now he saw the reason why. Maglor had changed out of the jeans and T-shirt he'd worn at the studio, and was wearing a black button-down tunic and black trousers, looking sharp.  
  
In one hand he held Auli's leash and a shopping bag, and in the other hand he held a bouquet of white roses. He handed the flowers to Sören, giving him a kiss on the way in.  
  
"Oh wow, this was so... unexpected." Sören felt awkward about being in a T-shirt and jeans himself now - not enough to go change - and he felt his stomach fluttering, heart doing flip-flops, warmth flooding him as he took the flowers and found a vase to put them in. " _Takk, elskan._ "  
  
Maglor smiled.  
  
Dooku took the shopping bag, which had most of the ingredients for  _paella_ ; Dooku had the shrimp in the fridge. He and Maglor set to work in the kitchen, and Sören curled up with Auli and Snúdur, listening to music on his headphones, zoning out.  
  
They ate outside, as it was a warm night, though it was expected to rain later and there was the whiff of petrichor on the air. After their meal they went inside and Maglor and Dooku sat on either side of Sören, petting him.  
  
"You should stay awhile," Sören said to Maglor.  
  
"OK."  
  
"We should watch something." Sören went through a selection of movies. Then he couldn't resist, pausing at one title. "Hmmm,  _The Man From UNCLE_  sounds good."  
  
The look on Dooku's face was priceless. "Er."  _Could you not._  
  
Maglor raised an eyebrow at Sören but otherwise didn't register a reaction. He said, simply, "More  _Metalocalypse_ , perhaps?"  
  
That was what they did. Partway into the first episode of their binge-watching, Sören decided that the conversation that needed to happen, and wasn't happening, would be easier if there was a social lubricant in place. They'd had wine with dinner, but Sören didn't want them  _drunk_. For the first time in years, Sören found himself wishing he had some molly, as that would have made things interesting, but he did have something else which would suffice. He got up, and went to the closet where he kept his satchel. He came back with his bag of weed and pipe, and started packing the bowl.  
  
Sören puffed and passed to Dooku. Sören had introduced him to marijuana when they were living together in London, though Sören didn't smoke terribly often and Dooku accompanied him in smoking less often. They both agreed that it  _did_  make sex a lot of fun, when they got high together, the weed strengthening their connection to the Force and each other, making physical sensations more intense, the emotions flowing more freely, bonding in euphoria. It was kept to a sometimes thing so they didn't develop a tolerance to it and could enjoy it as a special treat, when they did.  
  
Dooku puffed and passed back. Sören handed the pipe to Maglor.  
  
"It's been awhile," Maglor said.  
  
"Not since our trip to Amsterdam, I take it," Sören said.  
  
"No."  
  
"Well," Sören gestured.  
  
Maglor hesitated, and then he puffed on the pipe. They each had three hits a piece, which Sören found in his experience was plenty with high-grade kush like this was.  
  
When the buzz started to kick in, Maglor said, "We should take Auli for a walk."  
  
That was what they did, the three of them walking around the village together. The high seemed to intensify their appreciation of the beauty of nature, and of each other. "I love you guys so much," Sören said, putting an arm around each of them.  
  
"We love you too." Dooku kissed the top of Sören's head.  
  
"And it's great that you guys get along so well." Sören gave Dooku a pointed look. "The three of us make a really, really nice... unit."  
  
"Is it an absolute unit?" Maglor asked.  
  
Sören's laughter rang out into the sky. "You have learned how to meme. I'm so proud of you."  
  
"Hi so proud of you -"  
  
"Hey, that's my line, you butt." Sören gave him a playful shove, as Maglor laughed and Dooku rolled his eyes but smiled at them fondly.  
  
Back at the cabin, Auli drank water and took a nap. Dooku asked, "Do you feel like playing a game?"  
  
"The two of you can play something while I sketch, maybe?" Sören nodded.  
  
Dooku got out the chessboard, and he and Maglor played chess while Sören sketched. Sören had the stereo going in the background, which he put on the local pop station to annoy both of them. There was also an ulterior motive - every time a love song came on, as it often did, Sören gave Dooku a look to say  _go on, get on with it_.   
  
Dooku gave Sören an annoyed look in return.  _Not now._  
  
_When?_  
  
The chess game was a long one - both men were good at strategy - and they took a break when Sören had an attack of the munchies from his high. He dished out ice cream for all three of them, and once again snuggled up between them on the couch, his back against Dooku and his legs draped over Maglor. Maglor started giving him a foot rub, and Dooku a scalp massage, and Sören couldn't help moaning. At first it was innocent and unintentional, but when Sören realized the effect it was having on both of them, he couldn't resist, moaning louder.  
  
"I could get used to this," Sören said, finally. "Having both of you here, with me." He finished his ice cream and sensually sucked the spoon, eyes meeting Maglor's.  
  
"I like spending time with both of you," Maglor said.  
  
"Yeah, it feels like the three of us... belong." Sören patted both of them.  
  
And then, as if on cue, a certain Britney Spears song came on the pop station.  
  
_One, two, three  
Not only you and me  
Got 180 degrees and I'm caught in between  
  
Countin' one, two, three  
Peter, Paul and Mary  
Getting down with 3P, everybody loves—uh!—countin'_  
  
Maglor's face flushed, and as Dooku got up to put the bowls in the sink, Sören could tell he was flustered as well. The impulsive feeling intensified, and Sören danced his way over to Dooku in the kitchen.  
  
_Babe, pick a night  
To come out and play  
If it's alright  
What do you say?  
  
Merrier the more  
Triple fun that way  
Twister on the floor  
What do you say?  
  
Are you in?  
Living in sin is the new thing  
Are you in?  
I am counting_  
  
"What are you doing?" Dooku asked.  
  
Sören grinned at him and started grinding up on him, like he was in a club. He turned around to give Maglor a view of his shaking ass, and started taking off his shirt. He flung his shirt at Maglor, and turned around, undoing his jeans.  
  
"My god," Dooku said under his breath.  
  
Sören was in his boxer-briefs, dancing around the cabin, dancing his way over to Maglor, to give him a lapdance. Dooku made his way back over, just as red as Maglor, and Sören danced up on him as well, and then when the song was over, Sören took both their hands in his.  
  
"I want both of you," Sören said. He was hard, and feeling uninhibited.  
  
There was a sharp exhale from Dooku. Maglor swallowed hard, and then he nodded. "I'm game, if you are." He looked up at Dooku.  
  
"All right."  
  
Sören changed the station to R&B, to have something sexy to listen to. Maglor and Dooku walked over to the bed. Sören peeled off his boxer-briefs and then, once naked and proudly erect, he began to undo the buttons of Maglor's shirt. Then Dooku's.  
  
At last the three of them were standing there, naked. Sören used the Force to dim the lights in the cabin. Maglor had been glamoured - though Sören had said it was fine for Maglor to be unglamoured in private, he knew Maglor had kept up the glamour to not alarm Dooku, who had reacted so strongly when he saw Maglor as his true self over the weekend. And now, Sören twined a strand of Maglor's hair around his finger and said, "You can be yourself if you want. If that's OK with you, Nico."  
  
Dooku nodded. Sören let go of the hair he was playing with.  
  
Maglor took a deep breath, and they watched him drop the glamour, hair falling to his thighs, complexion pale and even more flawless save a few battle scars on his shoulder and thigh. He glowed silver in the dim golden light of the cabin, and his eyes were like iridescent labradorite. He had the sleek, muscular body of a warrior, almost hairless save a luxurious dark bush.   
  
Dooku's breath caught, staring at him open-mouthed.  
  
_Good. Let the lust flow through you._  Sören smirked.  
  
Maglor, in turn, was looking at Dooku with heat in his eyes. Though his face was lined with the years, he still looked closer to his fifties than seventy. His olive skin was surprisingly clear for his age, and Sören watched as Maglor's eyes took in the toned, sculpted muscle definition - Dooku was physically active and took care of himself, and it showed. His gaze raked the pelt of silver chest hair, the silver hair on his arms and thighs and calves - a contrast against the olive of his skin - the silver bush framing a long, thick, slightly upcurved cock that was flushed a deep pink and standing at attention now; Sören knew that was as much for Maglor as it was for him.  
  
Sören reached out to Dooku, fingers playing through the chest hair, rolling and pinching a nipple. Sören leaned in and kissed him, his fingers continuing to rub the nipple with one hand, pet the chest hair with the other, his own cock throbbing as he heard Dooku moan into the kiss. Sören kissed and licked Dooku's neck, fingers working the other nipple, his free hand still rubbing his chest, then reaching up to stroke his face, his beard. Sören claimed his mouth again and they both groaned into the kiss, and Sören heard Maglor let out a little sigh, watching them.  
  
Sören turned to Maglor and kissed him, playing with Maglor's hair, fingers lovingly tracing over the scars on Maglor's palm and shoulder and thigh. Sören could feel Dooku watching them, feel the heat in his gaze, and Sören shivered, pulse quickening with anticipation.  
  
When he and Maglor pulled apart, he took a step back. Maglor and Dooku looked at each other for a moment, as if they were both unsure of what to do next, and then Maglor stepped forward, and Sören watched as Maglor leaned into Dooku, pressing his mouth against his.  
  
Dooku's eyes widened with shock, and then he closed them, letting out a little whimper as he yielded to the kiss, kissing Maglor back with fire and fury, and Maglor wrapped his arms around him, kissing hard and hungry. Their hard cocks pressed up against each other, rubbing together.  
  
"Oh,  _fuck_  yeah," Sören heard himself whisper, starting to stroke himself to the sight of them, not able to help it.  
  
After a moment of deep kissing, they broke the kiss, breathing hard, with Maglor's lips still brushing against Dooku's, lingering for a moment before he moved back a little, looking into Dooku's eyes. Dooku's cheeks were flushed, and Sören could feel the thoughts and emotions racing across their bond. Dooku finally stammered, "Y-you want me...?"  
  
" _Yes._ " Maglor grabbed him and pulled him back into another kiss. "In case that weren't obvious." He guided Dooku's hand down to his cock, which was just starting to leak precum. Maglor kissed him again, and Sören moaned as he watched Maglor take both their cocks into his hand, stroking slowly as his free hand played through Dooku's chest hair, fingers walking to brush and pluck the nipples.  
  
"God, that's fucking  _hot_ ," Sören moaned.  
  
Sören was hornier than he had ever been in his life, and found himself getting on his knees. Both Maglor and Dooku were impressively hung, but Sören accepted the challenge, wrapping his lips around the heads of both their cocks, and getting as much of both cocks into his mouth as he could, sucking them together. He looked up at them as he sucked, rewarded by the sound of them both moaning as they continued kissing and slowly rubbing their cocks together inside Sören's mouth, hands roaming over each other. Sören resumed stroking himself as he sucked them, already right on the edge, trembling.  
  
Sören sucked their cocks together for a good few minutes, playing with his own cock, dripping precum as he watched his mates kiss and caress, exploring new territory. Sören felt feverish, desperate for release, but he wanted to savor, watch the delicious sight of them together as long as he could.  
  
At last Maglor's hand was in his curls, tugging, and Maglor broke the kiss to rasp, "Get up," at him. Sören did as he was told, and Maglor shoved him onto the bed. As Sören scooted back, Maglor climbed over him, with a predatory look on his face that made Sören break out into gooseflesh, already arching to him and panting as he leaned back against the pillows.  
  
Dooku was on the other side of Sören, and both men took a moment to drink him in with their eyes, as Sören's face burned and his stomach fluttered. Then Maglor leaned in to kiss him, and Dooku began to kiss, lick, and nibble Sören's neck and shoulder. Sören moaned, fingers of one hand in Maglor's hair, fingers of the other hand stroking Dooku's whiskers. After a few deep, sweet kisses, Maglor kissed the other side of Sören's neck and shoulder, and Dooku tilted Sören's face so they could kiss, petting his curls.  
  
They traded back and forth between them, Sören kissing Maglor while Dooku worked on his neck, then Sören kissing Dooku while Maglor teased his neck, and then, breathless, Sören watched as Dooku and Maglor kissed once more. They pulled apart and Sören saw the awe in Dooku's eyes, and the love in Maglor's own; Maglor took a moment to nuzzle him, before kissing him again.  
  
The two began kissing Sören's neck and throat at the same time, and then the kisses went lower. Sören heard himself making high-pitched, inhuman noises as Maglor and Dooku licked and sucked his nipples at the same time, teasing them into hard, exquisitely sensitive peaks. They played with the nipple rings, and after a few minutes of lapping and suckling they were nibbling on them as well, Sören crying out, writhing, begging " _Please_..."  
  
But they were all going to take their sweet time, tonight. They spent more time at his nipples, until Sören was practically sobbing. Then their mouths were on his stomach, kissing and licking and nibbling, and each man took a hip and a thigh, lips and tongue and teeth continuing to tease and tease.  
  
Maglor licked up the seam of his crotch, and Dooku kissed his way up. Sören thought having both his nipples sucked at the same time was the most intense sensation of his entire life, and now it was outdone by mouths on both sides of that sensitive part of him, and then a moment later that was outdone by two tongues licking his cock all over - both tongues on the head at the same time, then licking their way down, one man licking the root and shaft as the other focused on the head, to trade places. Sören heard himself panting, keening, out of his mind with lust like never before.  
  
He watched them kiss again, sharing his precum between them, and then Dooku took Sören's cock into his mouth as Maglor's tongue worked inside him. Sören arched to them, gasping, hands gripping the wooden slats of the headboard, white-knuckled. " _Fuck_ ," he cried out, not able to keep from rolling his hips, gently fucking their mouths. "Fuck, that's so good..."  
  
Just before Sören could come in Dooku's mouth, he stopped sucking, taking a few more teasing licks at the sensitive frenulum, and then he and Maglor kissed again. They came up to take turns kissing Sören. Sören found himself shoving Maglor onto his back, and bit his neck with a growl, making Maglor gasp and shudder. Then Dooku was on the other side of him, and Sören and Dooku worked together on Maglor's neck, nibbling and licking and kissing and sucking, ensuring that there would be bruises there the next day.  
  
Sören tucked a lock of hair behind Maglor's ear, exposing the pointy tip, and nipped at it, making Maglor gasp and shiver again. Sören licked the point of his ear, sucked on it, and Maglor clutched him, arching to him, panting. "So sensitive," Sören husked. "Mmm, Nico, you should try it."  
  
Dooku blushed, but came up to Maglor's other ear. "Lovely," he said, stroking the point between his thumb and forefinger before giving it a reverent lick, kissing it.  
  
They took turns claiming his mouth, then, and resumed kissing his neck, before Sören moved down to his nipples. Dooku and Sören gave Maglor the same treatment that Sören had been given, lapping and suckling and nibbling his nipples at the same time, driving him crazy.  
  
"You're so beautiful," Sören whispered, before seizing a nipple between his lips again.  
  
"Yes. You are." Dooku kissed Maglor again, and gently kissed his way down Maglor's neck back to the other nipple, sucking on it hard.  
  
Maglor's hips bucked, and he clutched their heads. There was a desperate look in his eyes, and he opened his mouth like he wanted to speak, but a moan stole his words.  
  
Sören smiled; he loved undoing him like this. He kissed lower, licking at the definition in Maglor's washboard stomach, and soon Dooku joined him, kissing and licking and sucking and nibbling, making Maglor moan even louder, gasping for breath between his moans.  
  
They worked on his hips and thighs together, the sensitive place behind the knee. Sören's fingers lovingly traced the battle scar on his thigh, his tongue licking it slowly, pressing soft, sweet little kisses there, nuzzling.  _I love you so much,_  Sören spoke into his mind.  
  
Maglor reached down to stroke Sören's face. His eyes were too bright.  
  
Sören swallowed his cock down to the hilt, and Dooku hesitated a moment, shy again, before dipping his tongue into Maglor's passage. The noises Maglor made as they feasted on him together made Sören's cock throb, and after he'd been gently stroking himself for a moment he felt Dooku's hand on his, and Dooku rolled so their cocks were pressed together and Dooku took both their cocks into his hand, stroking slowly as their mouths continued to adore the beautiful Elf they were sharing. After awhile Sören and Dooku switched so it was Dooku sucking him as Sören ate him, tongue-fucking the prostate, and then the two just lapped at his cock, collecting the precum with their tongues and every now and again, kissing and rubbing their tongues together between kisses, sharing his nectar between them.  
  
Sören finally nipped Dooku's lower lip, fingers playing through his chest hair again, and he rubbed and pinched a nipple. "Your turn," he rasped, and started pushing Dooku towards the pillows.  
  
Dooku lay back, looking at Sören and Maglor with wide eyes, cheeks flushed. "It's so cute how shy you are," Sören said, before taking his mouth with a kiss. Then Maglor leaned in for his kiss.  
  
"It's still unreal that you..." Dooku stroked Maglor's face.  
  
"It's very real, Nicolae." Maglor kissed him hard. "I've been wanting you for awhile."  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lip. "I told you so."  
  
Dooku seized a fistful of Sören's curls and kissed him hungrily, with Sören moaning into the kiss, grinding against his thigh. Maglor groaned at the sight of them, running his hands over both of them, before cupping Sören's chin and turning his head to steal a kiss. It was Dooku's turn to moan watching them, and he reached up to pet both of them, before his hands slid over their bare chests.  
  
Sören leaned down to give him another kiss, and Maglor started kissing Dooku's neck, throat, and shoulder, giving little teasing licks at his beard, as if he were an animal grooming fur. Sören nibbled Dooku's lower lip, and then Maglor kissed him as Sören kissed and licked the other side of his neck, fingers rubbing in slow, lazy circles over his chest and stomach. When both men were licking and sucking his nipples, Dooku made deep, primal groans that made Sören even harder, almost painful in his need now, rubbing against his thigh again, moaning as his lips latched around a hard peak.  
  
Dooku let out another groan as Sören and Maglor licked his chest hair, tongue-bathing him, before going for another round at his nipples. Not able to help himself, Sören took one of Dooku's arms and started licking the silver fur there, too, delighting at all the secret places he was sensitive - the wrist, his elbow. At the sound of Dooku's moans, Maglor did the same thing, kissing, licking, nibbling. Sören and Maglor shared another kiss, and got back to work kissing and licking Dooku's chest down to the tight abs, his stomach another feverishly sensitive place. His hips and thighs were also deliciously sensitive, and Sören noticed Maglor gently stroking himself as he explored there with fingers and tongue and Dooku's moans got louder.  _Yes, Nico, he does want you._  
  
When Maglor took Dooku into his mouth and Sören's tongue slid inside him, rubbing the prostate, the sound Dooku made brought Sören to that edge again, and for a minute Sören thought Dooku was going to come so soon. Maglor sucked slowly, teasingly, and Sören moved his tongue in slow, deliberate strokes. Dooku's deep moans filled the cabin, and Sören felt like he was going to die from sexual need, but he never wanted to stop worshiping his husband's body, or watching Maglor suck him, one of the most delicious things Sören had ever witnessed.  
  
After a little while they switched, with Sören's lips wrapped around his cock and Maglor's tongue inside him, bringing him to that edge before stopping. Dooku made a little cry of protest when they stopped, and Sören gave a few licks at the head of his cock just to tease, with Maglor pulling Sören up by his curls to kiss him and taste the precum on his tongue.  
  
The three of them looked at each other, and Sören suggested, "Daisy chain?"  
  
Dooku had no idea what Sören meant, even though he had some experience writing and reading erotica. He was about to find out. Sören had them get in a triangle formation laying on the bed, which was just big enough for three people in a tight fit. Sören sucked Maglor's cock, Dooku sucked Sören's cock, and Maglor sucked Dooku's cock, hands exploring as their mouths worked. They were all close enough that a few minutes into the sucking they were once again on that edge, trembling and needy for release, but continued to savor each other, reveling in the act of debauchery, a new kind of freedom. Sören came first, and his release set Dooku off, coming in Maglor's mouth, who in turn lost control as his mouth was flooded, spending into Sören's mouth, who hungrily swallowed as much as he could, lapping up the rest.  
  
They lay there for a moment after their orgasm, before assembling into a cuddle-pile, Dooku laying on his back and opening his arms, pulling both Sören and Maglor into his chest, petting them. He kissed the top of their heads each in turn, and Sören and Maglor nuzzled him, each giving him a soft, sweet little kiss.  
  
"That was lovely," Dooku said, closing his eyes with a happy sigh.  
  
"That was fucking  _hot_ ," Sören said. He crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip, pleased at the flash of heat in Maglor's eyes. "For round one."  
  
Dooku let out a full-bodied laugh. "An old man needs to recharge."  
  
"You can do that." Sören stroked his cheek. "I bet I know how to help with that."  
  
Dooku raised an eyebrow.  
  
Sören pulled Maglor into a deep, hungry kiss. They moved over to the side and Sören lay back, his arms and legs wrapped around Maglor as they kissed again and again, cocks hard once more and rubbing together. When Maglor started kissing and licking Sören's neck, Sören tilted his face to look at Dooku and moaned.  
  
Dooku rolled over and kissed Sören hard. "You naughty boy," he rasped.  
  
Sören's hand strayed to Dooku's cock. "Oh, look, what do we have here." He was hard again, too. He kissed Dooku back more teasingly, with little brushes of his lips and flickers of his tongue before taking his mouth hard, gratified by the moan Dooku made as their tongues met and swirled. Sören's hand stroked Dooku slowly, the thumb rubbing the slit and frenulum, knowing what he liked.  
  
"I told you I knew how to help," Sören said, nibbling Dooku's lower lip.  
  
"Yes, you're a very helpful boy."  
  
"I like helping. Helping's my favorite." Sören kissed his jaw, and then Maglor turned Sören's face back to him so they could kiss some more. Dooku gave an appreciative groan at the sight of them kissing.  
  
"What would our helpful boy like?" Dooku asked, when Sören and Maglor pulled apart, breathing hard.  
  
"Yes?" Sören laughed. He looked at Maglor. "Any suggestions?"  
  
"Also yes?" Maglor laughed too. "I'm down for pretty much anything, I think."  
  
Sören propped himself up on one elbow. Maglor started kissing his nipples, until Sören was arching to him, panting, clawing his back, and then pushed him off, giggling, "I can't think when you do that." Maglor planted a kiss over Sören's heart and nuzzled before pulling away to lean on Dooku, and started raining soft little kisses over Dooku's face, making Dooku smile at him adoringly.  
  
Sören took a few moments, entertaining many delicious possibilities, and then at last he husked, "I want both of you inside me."  
  
Dooku raised an eyebrow. "...At the same time...?"  
  
" _Yes._ "  
  
"Will that even fit...?"  
  
"Yes, Nico, I think I told you I've had a few threesomes before - back in that year of hell in Reykjavik, and double penetration was something I was on both the giving and receiving end of." At the murderous look on Maglor's face, broadcasting  _how dare anyone lay a hand on what is MINE_ , Sören preened, enjoying the jealousy Maglor felt of their time apart. But he also quickly soothed into Maglor's mind  _this is yours now, my love. Yours and Nico's._  
  
Dooku's face flushed, as he realized. "So we'd both be... in you. Together."  
  
"Yes." Sören leaned in and gave him a few soft kisses, and purred, "As you're inside me, your cocks will be rubbing against each other. It'll feel  _incredible._ "  
  
Dooku's breath hitched. Maglor was looking at them now like he was starving; Sören could feel the heat from him, ready to explode. He giggled and took Maglor's hands, pulling him in for a kiss, and then to kiss Dooku. Sören used the Force to retrieve the lube from the bedside table. "It's been a good four years since I've done this," Sören said, "so we have to go easy, but."  
  
"You sure it won't hurt...?" Dooku gave him a look of concern.  
  
"Not if we're using a lot of lube and go slow at first. An arse is a lot more flexible than a vagina, from everything I understand." Sören poured a copious amount of lube over Dooku's cock, working it in with his hands, and then handed the bottle of lube to Maglor and thrust out his ass. Maglor poured the lube directly into Sören's channel, who moaned as he felt the liquid shoot inside him. "God, I want your cum in me," Sören panted.  
  
Then Sören got into position. Dooku was laying on his back, and Sören turned around to get "reverse cowgirl", a position they'd done on occasion, but this time lay back, with his back against Dooku's chest once Dooku was inside him. Maglor poured lube over his cock and stroked himself as he watched Sören sink down on Dooku's cock, and then watched Dooku's cock gliding in and out of Sören's passage, the look of ecstasy on Sören's face at their joining. Dooku's arms wrapped around Sören right away, tilting his head so they could kiss, and the hand that wasn't stroking Sören's face was down playing with Sören's cock. After a few minutes of slow thrusts, Sören gestured to Maglor to come over.  
  
Maglor guided the tip of his cock to Sören's opening. "Let me know if it's too much and it hurts and you need me to stop," he said.  
  
"I will."  
  
Maglor went in slowly. Sören gasped, breathing harder - it was a tight fit, almost too tight, the stretching was a little painful at first, but Sören's  _need_  for it made him growl out, "Keep going." At last, they were both stuffed inside him, and Sören gasped for breath, needing a moment, overwhelmed not just at the sensation of being stuffed so full, but the love he felt for both of them, that feeling of completion and  _rightness_  that his soulmates were with him like this.  
  
They found their rhythm, a slow push-and-pull that, within a few strokes, had Sören right on that edge again, quivering, whimpering. The pleasure on his prostate was like never before. "Oh god," he gasped. "Oh god, that's so fucking  _good_..."  
  
Maglor leaned down to kiss Sören hard. Sören whined into the kiss, arching, bucking, but they continued to move slowly inside him. Dooku cupped Sören's chin in his hand and kissed him again, both men moaning into the kiss, and then Maglor leaned over Sören's shoulder to kiss Dooku, and Sören cried out at the sight of them kissing, feeling the passion they had for each other across their bond.  
  
The next while felt like an eternity, a dreamy, sensual haze that the three never wanted to end, Maglor and Dooku making love to Sören together but also making love to each other at the same time, their cocks rubbing together inside him, balls rubbing together as their cocks thrusted. They continued to take turns kissing, hands roaming over each other wherever they could reach, keeping it slow for as long as possible, sensations building deeper and higher, until they were all trembling, gasping, and started moving harder and faster, feverish. Sören's whimpers and high-pitched cries, and the two deeper-range moans filled the cabin. The kisses got more intense, and at last Dooku was biting his neck and Sören's nails were digging in Maglor's back. "Fuck me," Sören gasped. " _Riddu mér... Erfiðara. Hraðar, meira..._ "  
  
Sören's legs were around Maglor's waist, and Maglor was joining Dooku in the biting of Sören's neck and shoulder, every now and again Maglor and Dooku kissing each other before resuming their nibbles and licks at Sören's flesh. Sören felt like he was going to die if he didn't come, but he never wanted this to stop, their cocks hitting that perfect note over and over again...  
  
"Oh god.  _Oh god..._ " Sören grabbed Dooku's hands, and then he opened his hand, gesturing for Maglor. Maglor took their hands in his, three sets of hands linked together, and Sören could no longer hold back, screaming as he shattered, spending all over Maglor's chest. A few seconds after his climax began, contracting around the two cocks inside him, he felt them shooting into him, and the thought of their beautiful cocks coming all over each other and filling him with their seed sent Sören into another wave of throbbing release, making a guttural sound as he shot another blast over his Elven lover. Above the roar in his ears, he could hear them both crying out together, and then he and Dooku were kissing, he and Maglor were kissing, Maglor and Dooku were kissing, the three taking turns kissing each other over and over again, still holding hands as they continued to ride the spiral of their brilliant, blinding, glorious orgasm.  
  
It was shattering enough that Sören felt like a bowl of jelly. He was vaguely aware of them slipping out of him, and positioned to snuggle up between the two of them, the three tangled up together. Sören dozed off, warm and safe in his lovers' arms. For awhile, all was right with the world, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt, there was only peace. He heard the rain falling outside, and the rain and the sound of Dooku's heartbeat, Maglor's breath, lulled him to sleep.  
  
He woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a dog whining - Auli - and felt Maglor getting out of bed. In the darkness Maglor quickly pulled clothes on. "I have to go take him out for a few minutes," he whispered. "I'll be back."  
  
"Don't go -"  
  
"Shhhh, baby. I'll be back." Maglor patted him.  
  
Sören fell back asleep, and was woken up again by Maglor climbing in beside him, naked once more. Sören rolled over, so Dooku was his big spoon, and snuggled into Maglor's chest, playing with his hair. Maglor pet Sören's curls, and his arms tightened around both of them.  
  
"I love you," Sören murmured into him.  
  
"I love you very much, _melindo_." Maglor's eyes shone in the dark. "More than I can say."  
  
Sören leaned up and kissed him. What was meant to be a soft, tender kiss quickly turned heated, and soon they were making out, rubbing their cocks together. Dooku stirred, and chuckled at the two of them. "My," he said.  
  
Sören grabbed Dooku and kissed him, and then Maglor also kissed him, and Dooku let out a groan.  
  
They were all still exhausted from the performance a few hours ago - amazingly, even though Sören and Maglor had made love eight times in one night earlier that week; something about the three of them together made their orgasms almost nuclear in intensity. They formed into a cuddle-pile on Dooku's chest so all three cocks were touching, and they stroked them together, the three taking turns kissing each other, free hands caressing, exploring. Watching their three cocks come together, seed pouring like a waterfall, was one of the most erotic sights of Sören's life, and it was another violent orgasm, Sören shaking like he was having a seizure, making wild, primal noises. They scooped up their mingled seed and licked and sucked it from each other's fingers, intensifying the last waves of orgasm, and then they settled into each other's arms again, as thunder rolled outside.  
  
"This has been the most beautiful night of my life," Sören sighed.  
  
"Hopefully, there'll be more where this came from." Maglor's lips brushed Sören's forehead, and he looked at Dooku.  
  
Dooku nodded. "I could get very used to this."  
  
"That's good." Maglor snuggled into his shoulder. "I feel so safe with both of you."  
  
Sören's arms squeezed him, his heart soaring as unshed tears burned his eyes.  _Yes. Your home is with us now. Stay._


	34. Undenied

**Undenied**

 

 _Friday_  
  
_He is a young ellon again, at sword practice, sparring with his uncle Fingolfin and his aunt Írimë. Watching them spar each other, fast and furious. Írimë refuses to be treated more gently because she is a woman; Fingolfin shows her no mercy, and she is just as merciless. As lethal and merciless as she had been with Maglor earlier, managing to nick him twice with her blade.  
  
After his rest, watching their fight, he is fighting Fingolfin again.  
  
"Thy mind is elsewhere," Fingolfin warns him. "I know thou art anxious to get to thy harp practice, but thine attention must be_ here. _Thy life may depend upon this someday."  
  
What he does not tell his uncle is,_ The more I focus on thee, the more I long for thee.  
  
_He is a flustered mess by the time the day's practice is over, aching for his uncle, glorious in battle. He is so shaken that when it is time to see his aunt Findis for harp practice, she notices.  
  
Somehow, she gets it out of him. He expects her to shame him, since it is a sin to desire one's own gender, let alone one's own relatives. But instead she says, "Macalaurë, I will tell thee a secret. Írimë and I have been lovers since we came of age."  
  
She also tells him, "Perhaps thou shouldst compose a song for him, to express thy feelings."  
  
He feels so ridiculous, but nonetheless his love and longing flows like water as he plucks the strings. When the composition is complete, some weeks later, he plays it for Findis first, to make sure it is good. It moves her to tears.  
  
His hope is that Fingolfin will be moved by it, and not reject the asking to be made a man by him, as his fiftieth begetting day approaches._  
  
Maglor woke, and the first thing he saw were Dooku's dark chocolate eyes, warm and filled with love. Dooku was holding both of them close, gently petting them before the alarm went off.  
  
Maglor leaned in to give him a soft kiss and nuzzle him. Sören stirred then, yawning and stretching. He gave them both a sleepy smile. Dooku kissed the tip of Sören's nose, and Sören kissed his nose back, and then nuzzled Maglor before kissing him, twining hair around his fingertips.  
  
"What time is it?" Sören squinted at the alarm. "Oh, that would have gone off in five minutes anyway."  
  
Dooku got up, as Sören and Maglor continued snuggling - Maglor always found it endearing rather than annoying that Sören was not a morning person, as he himself preferred the sunset and moonlight. Nonetheless there was something achingly precious about being wrapped up cozy and safe with Sören in the hazy golden glow of the morning after another night of rain and storms. Something that felt very right about being in this bed, their home, with Auli and Snúdur hopping onto the bed together to demand affection, and receive it in copious quantities.  
  
Dooku poured out food for Snúdur. "I'll have to head back soon to feed Auli," Maglor said, giving a little frown as Auli made a pitiful whine. At least he'd had water and gone outside to eliminate.  
  
"Can you stay for breakfast?" Dooku asked.  
  
"Yeah, I think I can."  
  
Sören clung to him, making a little whine and grumbling, "Dun wanna get uuuup yet," which made Maglor laugh. They resumed snuggling, and at last Dooku came over with coffee and breakfast in bed for both of them.  
  
For the first time in too long, Maglor felt something like hope. It was a dangerous feeling to have. A feeling that until very recently, he could not afford to have. But now...  
  
He had been starving, and here was a feast. It might not last forever, but Sören was absolutely right when he said it was better to take a few years of comfort, rather than the ongoing pain of being alone. And being apart from Sören had been a very special kind of pain, it had been like having a limb cut off.  
  
He and Sören got changed after breakfast. They lingered at the door, kissing. At last Maglor asked, "I assume you're still going on your date with Vanimórë this evening?"  
  
Sören nodded solemnly. "Six PM, he's coming to get me."  
  
"All right." Maglor looked at Dooku.  
  
"I'm free," Dooku said, "if you'd like to get together?"  
  
"I'd like that very much. My place?"  
  
"Yes. Do you want to cook together, or...?"  
  
Maglor swallowed hard, feeling a little shy, but pushing past it. "I think I'd like to take you out to dinner, then on a drive, before we return to my place."  
  
Dooku's face flushed, realizing that he, also, was going on a date.   
  
Sören grinned. "Well, have fun, you two." Sören patted Maglor and gave him another kiss. Then Sören whispered in his ear, "Make him come so hard he can't remember his name."  
  
Maglor laughed at that, even as delicious mental images coursed through him. "I'll see what I can do," he replied, sotto voce.   
  
Then Sören said, in his usual indoor voice, "Why don't you spend the weekend with us?" He looked at Dooku, who nodded. "If you want to..."  
  
_As if I would refuse._  "Yes. But perhaps at my place, since your cabin fits two, but would be a bit crowded for three for a weekend. Plus there's a larger bed."  _Now that Vanimórë isn't using it._  "You can bring the cat with you."  
  
"Perfect." Sören kissed him again. "Now get out of here before I ravish you and miss my classes for the day."  
  
Maglor grinned and pulled Auli's leash. "Come on, let's get you some food."  
  
As he walked to the cottage, he found himself reflecting on the conversation he'd had with Vanimórë yesterday.  
  
_"Later I am just going to have dinner with Sören and Dooku, then I am going home..."  
  
"Yes, Macalaurë Fëanorion, thou art going home." _  
  
Then he remembered what Vanimórë had said when he'd shown up in Alaska with plane tickets.  _I have a gift for thee._  
  
Maglor facepalmed.  _He knew, that the three of us would get to this place. He set up the date with Sören not just to spend time with him, but so I would take time for Nicolae._  
  
He still couldn't bring himself to forgive Vanimórë, wouldn't stop hating him, but...  
  
_He intended not just to bring Sören and I back together, but for me to find Nicolae as well._  
  
Dooku had become  _very_  dear to him, and even though he had been hesitant, with Dooku in the sunset of his life, he nonetheless would not push him away. He was done with that. Even though it would break his heart when the old man died, whenever that would be... he was done. He would let himself enjoy this, enjoy  _them_.  
  
Part of him wanted to head right back to Dooku's cabin after he fed Auli, drag Dooku into bed and make him writhe for hours while Sören was at the studio, but...  _That will be later. Save thy appetite for later._  He felt strangely nervous about it, a similar apprehension to when he had been a young ellon wanting to seduce his uncle Fingolfin, though it wasn't like he was an inexperienced virgin anymore.  
  
After he was back at the cottage and Auli was fed, Maglor took a shower. He was reluctant to wash off the scent of his lovers, the evidence of their tryst, but he wanted to be fresh  _to make a good impression_. It still felt surreal this was even happening, but here it was, and he heard himself singing under the water.  
  
He felt  _good._  
  
Shortly after he was out of the shower, while he was getting changed, his cell phone rang. He felt a moment of panic, that Dooku was getting cold feet and calling to cancel, that feeling of his world crashing around him. He breathed a small sigh of relief when he didn't recognize the number on his cell, though he was also annoyed by it. He took the call. "Hello?"  
  
"Yes, hi, I'm calling to speak with Alejandro. Is this Alejandro?" A woman's voice, East End London to place the accent.  
  
"This is...?"  
  
"My name's Frankie. You don't know me, but you know Sören."  
  
"...I see. Good morning, Frankie, how did you get this number?"  
  
"It was on your contact info on the description of your music class on Sören's website."  
  
Maglor facepalmed. He should have realized that. "What can I do for you."  
  
"I hear you and Sören are back together, is that true?"  
  
"Yes, it's true."  
  
"When he was living in London, he told me about you, and how you ran off on him and it broke his heart. And he felt like such a piece of trash that he ended up with that shitty Justin Roberts - who's dead now, deserves it, the rotten bastard -"  
  
Maglor took a deep breath, feeling the rage flare inside him all over again at the mere mention of Justin's name. If ever he could resurrect someone from the dead  _just to kill them all over again_ , it would be that filth.  
  
"- and I was there for all of that, and let me tell you, it was not pretty. So, I'm gonna give it to you straight here - if you break Sören's heart again, I'll break your face. That poor bean has been through so much  _shit_  in his life -"  
  
"Yes. He has." Maglor sighed. "I'm not going to run off on him again, Frankie."  
  
"You say that, but you better fucking  _mean_  it. I sure as  _hell_  mean it, I will  _hunt you down_. You leave Iceland? Go somewhere in Europe? Back to South America? I'll hire a private investigator, I will fly to the ends of the Earth to  _kick your fucking arse_  -"  
  
This was the best friend Sören had mentioned briefly; there was a painting of her hanging up at the studio. Maglor had been taken aback when he saw it - as he had been at so much of Sören's work; Sören had somehow managed to paint Frankie in armor and with a sword and shield identical to the armor, sword and shield of his aunt Írimë. Maglor had wondered about that, he knew Sören had a gift, of course. He could see now why he might have picked up on something in the threads of the past and painted it in the tribute to his friend - Frankie was reminding him of Írimë now, her ferocity that had been such an asset in Fingolfin's company going off to war.  
  
A different voice cut in, female, but a deep, smoky contralto with a heavy Icelandic accent, heavier than Sören's accent, which had been tempered from spending time in London. "Hi, Alejandro. It's been awhile, hasn't it?"  
  
"Yes, Margrét. How's your band?" The kind of music that Brjálaðir Tíkur played, if it could be called "music", was not Maglor's cup of tea - last he remembered, it was a bass- and synth- driven darkwave band, which would have been fine except for Margrét's shrieking - but he still supported Margrét's efforts as a musician.  
  
"Going strong. You heard about my lawsuit with Kylo, right? I won. 'Course, now he's in jail for stabbing his dad..."  
  
" _Yeah_ , that's... quite... a shame. I'm glad you cut off ties with him before all of that."  
  
"He's a horrible shit. His parents are lovely people, his brother's lovely - did you know his brother's married to Dag? But Kylo, himself? Fuck him. Anyway, band is good, been writing some new material lately in fact!"  
  
"Good, good."  
  
"They're telling me I should try actually  _singing_  the new stuff, instead of just screaming."  
  
"You should, you have a nice voice."  _And anything is nice compared to the screaming._  
  
"Hm. Well, change is difficult. As no doubt you know."  
  
"I surely do know."  _All too well._  It was strange just to be happy, here in this moment. "On that note, I hear congratulations are in order." Maglor looked at the calendar. "Ah, the wedding is close."  
  
"Já, I'm having a small party before the wedding a week from today, and then the wedding itself is on Saturday the 10th, and there's the reception after."  
  
"Sören had mentioned he and Nicolae would be leaving for Reykjavik on Thursday."  
  
A pause. "I see you're on a first name basis with him."  
  
"...Yes."  
  
"Hm." Another pause. "I suppose you'll be wanting a wedding invite too, as their plus-one."  
  
Maglor hadn't mentioned that he was with both of them, and since the threesome had happened just last night and he knew Sören was  _not_  a morning person and would not have rushed to call or e-mail his sister to tell her everything, he deduced that Margrét had made an observation of him being "their" plus-one just from not using Dooku's surname to refer to him. This was a woman who tended bar for a living, it made sense she would notice things.  
  
"So that would be you and Van coming with...?"  
  
_Hells._  Maglor didn't like the idea of Vanimórë accompanying them, but he also didn't want to get into that drama with her, nor did he want to voice dissent to Sören and be seen as controlling. "Only if you're all right with inviting me, Margrét, I don't want to invite myself -"  
  
"Jæja, I'll invite you, if only so Frankie and I can put the fear of the gods in you properly."  
  
_Margrét, my dear, the gods have already made my life a hell far more than you will ever know._  "Well, thank you. Shall I bring a gift...?"  
  
"Bring yourself, this event is less formal than you think it's going to be. A bunch of punks are attending. And the wedding and the reception has an 80s theme, I'm surprised Sören didn't bring it up." Maglor could hear the almost-smile in Margrét's voice as she said, "If you really want to get me something, do the karaoke at the reception. You get all the bonus points if it's Duran Duran."  
  
Maglor could hear Frankie howling and shouting, "NO, NOT DURAN DURAN!" in the background.  
  
"Oh you know what?" Margrét continued. "You still have all that long hair, right?"  
  
"My hair is exactly the same as you remember it."  
  
"You need to  _tease your fuckin' hair_  for the wedding."  
  
Maglor wondered if it would be bad if he drank this early. He remembered the 1980s vividly, he was in West Berlin for most of it. Those were... interesting times. "Oh for fuck's sake."  
  
"Doooo iiiiiit. Do it as a peace offering, because goddammit, Alejandro, you left me  _such_  a mess to clean up with Sören -"  
  
He cringed.  _I bet._  "Margrét..."   
  
"Come onnnnnnnnnnnn. Tease your hair and wear an outfit that, like, Stryper would envy."  
  
"If you want to put the fear of the gods in me, you're already succeeding."  
  
"Maybe not Stryper then, maybe more like... Bon Jovi?"  
  
"OK, Margrét, I'm hanging up now. I'll see you in a week." Maglor hit "End".  
  
Then Maglor's thoughts went back to the near-panic he'd been in when the phone rang, worrying that it was Dooku cancelling, having second thoughts and rejecting him...  
  
_Clearly, I'm in deep._  
  
It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.  
  
The phone rang again a minute later. Different number, but again, not one he recognized. "Hello," he snapped.  
  
"Alejandro, it's Margrét again. I forgot to offer you another invite... we have a chat server for the family to keep in touch across distances. If you're back together with Sören and you're sticking around, you might as well be there -"  
  
"Well... thank you, I appreciate that. I likely won't be able to join until later this weekend, since I've plans for this evening -"  
  
"I bet." Margrét continued, "I'm one of the admins, so I'll send you an invite. The contact info on the website for Sören's studio, is that a good e-mail where I can send the invite?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Maglor heard Margrét making a few clicks and then she snickered. "Oh my god, cantor.de.fogo is your username,  _really._ "  
  
"Really." He could hear the unspoken  _that is so pretentious_.  
  
"Mkay. I'm sending you an invite now."  
  
"Thank you. I don't do chat much -"  
  
"Well, every now and again to say hi, you know. Get to know us again. Might make us feel a little less stabby in your general direction." This time Margrét hung up first.  
  
Elves didn't forget things, but Maglor had nonetheless - in his distraction, reacquainting himself with Sören's body - not fully recalled until now that Sören's  _colorful_  family was a package deal with Sören. He had seen quite a lot of Margrét and Ari when they lived in Reykjavik, with the two frequently coming to dinner or accompanying them on day trips. They had been people he counted as friends, back then, and he hadn't just missed Sören, he missed feeling like part of a family.  
  
So even if they felt "stabby" towards him, that, too, was strangely comforting. Margrét was still Margrét. He always liked her, she reminded him a bit of his aunt Findis.   
  
He still tread lightly for now - he knew from Sören that his siblings and cousin were also gifted similarly to Sören, but he didn't yet know if his secret would be safe with them, and he feared having to let them go in ten years when he and Sören inevitably had to move because of his inability to age, and glamour would only take care of so much.  
  
He was so tired of running.  
  
_We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I need to not get in my own way for once._  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören was a little surprised, but not terribly surprised, that Vanimórë had decided to take him to Reykjavik for the night, which was forty-five minutes one way by plane out of the Akureyri airport. There was a wider selection of fancy restaurants and hotels in Reykjavik, and Vanimórë had of course gotten reservations at an upscale restaurant and a very posh hotel. When they checked in to the hotel before heading to the restaurant, Sören noticed there was an actual jacuzzi in the bathroom, and the bedroom and bathroom had both been set up with candles. He was of a mind, after flirting and cuddling on the plane trip, to just slam Vanimórë against a wall and spend the entire evening in the hotel room, but Sören was a little hungry for food, and besides Vanimórë had offered to spoil him a little to make up for everything, so Sören was going to take him up on that.  
  
Dinner was superb, salmon grilled to perfection, roasted vegetables, a rich soup and fresh fruit with cream for dessert. Sören and Vanimórë fed each other the cream-dipped fruit like lovers, and in those moments, playfully licking and sucking his fingers, Sören could  _almost_  forget that he'd been lied to.  
  
Back in the rental car on the road, they passed by a supermarket, and Sören saw Kol with a small folding grocery cart filled with shopping bags, clearly on his way back home to Frankie and Margrét. A few strands of his long red hair blew in the slight wind. Just before Sören could wave, Vanimórë beeped the horn. Kol looked, and paused in his tracks.  
  
"Oh my god, you know  _Kol_?" Sören asked.  
  
"We're acquainted, yes." Vanimórë pulled the car over and rolled down the window. "Would you like a ride?"  
  
"No, it's all right," Kol said. "I needed to go for a walk and get some fresh air, feel the nice cool breeze, told the girls I'd go shopping while I was out. Thank you for offering, though." He smiled at Sören. "Hello there."  
  
"Hello yourself." Sören raised an eyebrow. "I didn't know that you two..."  
  
Kol reached past Vanimórë and patted him. He felt very, very warm, like he was running a fever. "We're old friends," he said, meeting Sören's eyes. Then he drew his hand back and rubbed Vanimórë's shoulder. "Take care of that one, or the girls will have your arse on a platter."  
  
"Oh, I'm sure." Vanimórë smiled.  
  
"You've met Margrét and Frankie...?" Sören whispered.  
  
"Not yet," Vanimórë said, and Sören heard  _I have, but they wouldn't recognize me_  hanging at the end of that sentence. Before he could speculate what that was about, Vanimórë said, "Enjoy the rest of your evening, Kol."  
  
"Yes, you two enjoy yourselves as well." A knowing smile. "And I... will see you soon, at the wedding next week?"  
  
Vanimórë looked at Sören, and Sören said, "I had asked to invite you, and I hadn't gotten around to asking you to come along yet, but now's as good a time as any."  
  
"Yes, you'll see me next week." Vanimórë waved, and rolled the window back up, pulling back out into the road.  
  
A few minutes later Sören said, "Well,  _that_  was interesting."  
  
"'Interesting' would be a way of describing it, yes."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. "Are we going to the hotel now?"  
  
"I have someplace else to take you first."  
  
That someplace else turned out to be the club where they had met in 2015. As fate would have it, they were both wearing the exact same outfits they had been wearing that night. Sören marveled on this as they walked in together.  
  
"I won't stop you if you think you need something," Vanimórë told him, referring to the molly that was readily available, "but -"  
  
"I don't." Sören's gaze held his. He wanted to be sober for this, whatever it was Vanimórë would show him later.  
  
Unlike the throwback house and techno that had been playing the night Sören first encountered him here, it was acid jazz and other downtempo stuff, which made for more sensual, slow dancing. Sören stood on the sidelines for a few songs, drinking water, recognizing a few faces in the crowd from his old party days, but of course, none of them recognized him or if they did, none of them cared enough to approach him. It was just as well - Sören felt almost as if he were an alien arrived from another world. What had once been his escape, so central to his life four years ago, was now firmly a part of his past. He was in a better place now.  
  
But he still loved music and dancing, a form of expression and release for him in its own way, and he found himself not able to resist the rhythm when Jamiroquai came on, grabbing Vanimórë and pulling him close.  
  
_I need your love,  
I need your love...   
You, give me light  
So tonight, take me there  
I, feel your sun  
Start to glow and I know it  
Let me show you that  
I want your love  
I need your touch  
For the rest, of our time together,  
Baby, come fly with me, eternally  
You and me,  
We were meant to be  
  
Yeah hey  
Alright (right now)  
We'll spend the night together  
Wake up and live forever  
Yeah hey  
Alright (right now)  
We'll spend the night together  
Wake up and live forever_  
  
Sören's hands were on Vanimórë's hips, and Vanimórë was caressing Sören's chest, feeling the nipple rings underneath his shirt. They thrusted against each other, and stole a kiss as the song was winding down.  
  
That set the pace for the next couple of hours, the two dancing together, Sören experiencing actual happiness and connectedness this time instead of the numbness and desperate grasping at warmth of four years ago. It felt like a celebration, this time around, rather than the mourning that it had been. Something had been dying inside him, then, and was blooming inside him now. He had come full circle, and as much as he wanted to hate Vanimórë for lying to him, he couldn't. Vanimórë had  _helped_  - he didn't have to, and he did it anyway, because he cared about Maglor, seemed to care about Sören before they'd even met, which Sören didn't understand, but that made Vanimórë OK in his book, and he wanted to radiate some of that happiness back at him, wanted Vanimórë to bask in the glow of that fire.  _Thank you_ , Sören tried to express with his body, his rhythm, his smile, his laughter.  
  
He was high, and no drugs were involved. Though Vanimórë certainly  _smelled_  intoxicating.  
  
People were making requests to the DJ now, so different genres of music were being played, though still all songs that could be danced to. Sören snickered to himself as a familiar beat began pounding, the song he'd lost his virginity to at age seventeen, in the back seat of a car in Akureyri in 2001.  
  
_You can have my isolation, you can have the hate that it brings  
You can have my absence of faith, you can have my everything  
  
Help me tear down my reason, help me - it's your sex I can smell  
Help me - you make me perfect, help me become somebody else  
  
I wanna fuck you like an animal  
I wanna feel you from the inside  
I wanna fuck you like an animal  
My whole existence is flawed  
You get me closer to God_  
  
Sören played with a lock of Vanimórë's hair, rubbing against him, and leaned in for a kiss. "Hotel now?"  
  
"Yes, beauty."  
  
As soon as they got to the hotel room, Sören began kissing Vanimórë, feverishly undressing. Vanimórë was slower and more deliberate with his own clothing, and then he said, "Wait here." Sören waited by the bed, watching Vanimórë retrieve a bottle of champagne from the fridge, and bring it into the bathroom.  
  
A few moments later he stood in the bathroom door, naked and fully erect, and gestured for Sören to come forward.  
  
The candles were lit around the bathroom, the jacuzzi going with a bit of scent added to the water to give it a spicy floral scent. Sören took Vanimórë's hand and they stepped into the jacuzzi together; then Vanimórë poured them each a flute of champagne.  
  
They kissed in between sips of their champagne, which turned into necking and caressing, and then, feeling playful, Sören "accidentally" spilled champagne onto Vanimórë and licked it off, which led to Vanimórë pouring champagne over Sören and licking it off his skin, nibbling a little, as Sören gasped and shuddered.  
  
Sören moaned as Vanimórë reached for his cock under the bubbling hot water, stroking it slowly, continuing to kiss him and caress with his free hand. Soon Vanimórë was stroking their cocks together, and Sören felt almost ready to come, but the wicked look in Vanimórë's eyes told him he had only just begun, and it was confirmed when Vanimórë took his hand off them and caressed Sören's chest, idly playing with a nipple ring before taking Sören's face to kiss him once more.  
  
"Sören," he husked, "it's time."  
  
_God, now?_  Sören gave him a look.  
  
Vanimórë laughed softly at his obvious frustration. "I thought you wanted to see -"  
  
Sören bit Vanimórë's lower lip with a growl, but then after a softer kiss he nodded. "All right."  
  
"The first thing. My cell phone is over there, in my trousers." Vanimórë pointed to leather pants folded neatly on a table near the bathroom door.  
  
"I can hold your glass if you get up, or I'll get it -"  
  
Vanimórë played with a strand of Sören's curls. "You can get it, but we both know you don't need to get up for that."  
  
Sören narrowed his eyes. "Did Maglor tell you...?"  
  
"No. I already knew." Vanimórë leaned back and sipped champagne. "Show me."  
  
Sören took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and waved his hand. He opened his eyes and watched the cell phone slip out of the pocket of the leather trousers, and float across the room. "I don't know if having that around water is such a great idea -"  
  
"Perhaps not, but I think here is a good place to show you, nonetheless." Vanimórë toweled off his hand as the cell phone floated near him, before he seized it. Sören watched as he pressed a few buttons, then he pulled Sören close to show him what he was looking at.  
  
Sören saw a very posh-looking flat, with paintings hung on the walls.  
  
"This is my place in Chelsea," Vanimórë said.  
  
"I see. It's very nice." Sören tilted his face, looking up at him. "Why are you...?"  
  
Vanimórë pressed the forefinger of his other hand to Sören's lips, and then traced them sensually, before Sören started sucking on it, teasing him. Vanimórë shivered, and pressed other buttons on the phone to zoom in.  
  
Sören gasped.  
  
"That's..." Sören blinked. " _That's my painting._ "  
  
"Yes, beauty. That is one of  _your_  paintings."  
  
"I painted that... 2015. It was the first thing I painted after Maglor and I broke up..." Sören looked at him with disbelief. "After I met you at the club, I got inspired to, well, sketch you, and then paint you. I called it  _Dancer in the Darkness_. It was a bit of a loving tribute." Sören realized as the word came out of his mouth that even back then, he'd loved Vanimórë a little, even as it seemed strange after just one night.  _But what a night._  "I had a woman show up at one of my art shows, insisting to pay me double what it was worth -"  
  
"That was Charlie. She's one of my most valued and trusted employees. I sent her on my behalf. I've been following your work for years, and it's not the only painting of yours that I own." Vanimórë gave him a sad look. "When you stopped showing anywhere, for a time, it was concerning to me. Then I got word that you had a show in London, in October 2017, at Leja Bollasdóttir Sulu's gallery... and someone else bought all your available paintings before my handler could." He laughed softly. "I thought it was best to not interfere, I knew you'd found another admirer."  _I knew you'd found_  him.  _Who I sent you to London to find. A pity it wasn't sooner._  
  
_That was why you told me to go to London?_  
  
_Yes. Dooku and Frankie._  
  
"I..." Sören shook his head. The question  _Why...?_  hung at the back of his head, but he didn't ask, already overwhelmed by the knowledge that he and Dooku, he and Frankie, had been  _fated_  to meet each other. Just even the fact that Vanimórë liked his work this much to buy it and follow his career was breaking his brain. "Holy shit, wow." Sören blinked at the painting again and took a deep breath. "I took some artistic liberties, which, you know, I tend to do with my work." He was referring to the eyes and the length of the hair. "I hope you don't mind."  
  
"Sören. Please put the phone back over there, yes?"  
  
Sören used the Force to float the cell phone back to the table. Then Vanimórë stood up, and Sören felt a frisson down his spine - not so much because of their size difference and Vanimórë towering over him, but  _something was about to happen_...  
  
Vanimórë took out his contacts, and dropped them into the tub. The contacts had been colored, for brown eyes, and Sören was looking into a pair of violet eyes, the same color he had painted. Then Vanimórë took a deep breath and Sören watched the hair fall from Vanimórë's waist to his calves, the same as the length of his hair in the painting. Longer even than Maglor's hair. And he, too, had pointed ears.  
  
Sören dropped his glass; it floated in the water. Vanimórë took Sören's hands and pulled him to his feet, standing beside him.  
  
Vanimórë stroked Sören's face, the bearded chin, ran his thumb along Sören's lower lip again before Sören sucked on it a little. "You see, beauty. Your gift is not just that you can move things without touching them, you can hear thoughts, feel the emotions of others. You can  _see._  I know you do not fully trust yourself, because you loved Justin, you wanted to see goodness in him when all he had for you was contempt and pleasure in your suffering - like the aunt and uncle who abused you, and treated you like a monster for being what you are - and you live in a world that does not accept the kind of gifts that you and your family have. But it is time, beauty, to start trusting yourself at least  _a little_. To let that illuminating fire guide you. You will need it, in the days... years... to come." Vanimórë's fingers walked down Sören's throat, and sternum, to rest on his heart. " _Macalaurë will need it._ "  
  
"Maglor...?"  
  
" _Yes._ "  
  
"He is an Elf. I am just a human mortal. That is what I know -"  
  
"You know nothing, Sören Sigurdsson." Vanimórë's lips crushed his, kissing him hard enough to take his breath away.  
  
Then, he stepped out of the jacuzzi, and then he picked up Sören like he weighed nothing, carrying him out of the jacuzzi, out of the bathroom, to the bed - Sören used the Force to turn off the jacuzzi and snuff the candles. Vanimórë kissed him all the way there. Sören loved it, being carried in his arms, cradled, kissed like this.  
  
It wasn't helping him not be in love.  
  
There were candles around the hotel room as well, and Sören waved his hand to light them with the Force, which Vanimórë smiled at before claiming another kiss. He gently set Sören down on the bed, and reached for the collar and leash Sören had brought with him. He fit the collar around Sören's neck, and clipped the leash through, and then kissed him again.  
  
A few kisses later, and Vanimórë paused. "What is it, beauty?"  
  
"You said at the studio yesterday that we're acquainted elsewhere, in a sense...?"  
  
"It will be easier to explain that once the person I mentioned who's better equipped than myself to show you the last missing pieces of this equation, shows you."  
  
"Is it Kol?"  
  
"No." Vanimórë kissed him again.  
  
"OK." Sören nodded. Then he pet Vanimórë's face. "You're fucking  _gorgeous._  My painting doesn't do you justice -"  
  
"Don't say that. Don't disparage your work around me again." Vanimórë's eyes were stern, then they softened.  
  
They shared another kiss, and then Sören's fingers wandered to pluck and pinch a nipple. He started kissing Vanimórë's neck, continuing to rub the nipple in slow, lazy circles, grinning at Vanimórë's groan. "What would you like, tonight? I'd like to say 'thank you' for everything -"  
  
"Don't thank me yet."  
  
Sören  _bit_  his neck at that, and then he took Vanimórë's chin in his hand, his own expression stern now. "What would please you, Vanimórë? Seriously."  
  
"With you? Everything." He took Sören's face in his hands, and pressed a tender kiss to Sören's forehead.  
  
Sören pushed Vanimórë onto his back. With the Force, he reached for the bottle of lube. Before he could pour it over Vanimórë's waiting cock, he laughed. Then he explained, "That set of test results you gave me... that was forged...?"  
  
"I didn't like lying to you, but I couldn't have very well told you a few weeks ago that I'm not human and can't get human diseases."  
  
"We used condoms and didn't need them." Sören was laughing so hard it hurt now. " _Maglor_  and I used condoms, the first month or so, ten years ago, and didn't need them.  _God..._ "  
  
"I'm glad you're not angry. I wanted to make you feel safe." Vanimórë reached up to pet Sören. "I love your smile and your laughter. Your ability to find humor and joy in life, even in the darkest places."  
  
"Well, it's not always been like that, as you know. Last time we were at that club I wasn't doing so great." Sören sighed. "But things are better now. In no small part because of  _you._ "  
  
"Don't sell your own efforts short."  
  
"Again, I want to thank you." Sören leaned down to kiss him, and laughed again at the lube bottle that was just hovering in the air as they talked; he used the Force to pour the lube over his cock, grinning into kisses. "I want to please you."  
  
"What pleases you, pleases me, beauty."  
  
"Well then." Sören's fingers played over Vanimórë's chest, teasing the nipples before trailing lower. "We can start by making up for all that hot cum of yours that I hadn't gotten deep inside me." Sören's fingers brushed over the head of his cock, stroking the slit and the frenulum. "I love feeling my lovers come inside me."  _I love feeling the people I love come inside me._  
  
"I think I can oblige you." Vanimórë grabbed Sören's hips and guided him, and they both sighed as Sören sank down on his cock. Sören let out a cry as Vanimórë bottomed out inside him, buried to the hilt. After a moment of adjusting to the fullness, Sören began to ride slowly, running his hands over Vanimórë's chest again, then his fingers played over the swirling tattoos on Vanimórë's arms. Vanimórë played with the leash, pulling Sören down for a kiss.  
  
_  
  
Dooku had spent most of the day feeling a combination of giddiness and anxiety - like he was a lovesick teenager. He still couldn't believe what happened last night, that Maglor had actually wanted him.   
  
And yet, lust was not the same as love. Dooku knew he had fallen for Maglor, but he didn't know for certain that the feelings were returned. There had been tenderness there, last night, but neither man had confessed feelings to the other. Dooku knew they had to talk about it, and tonight was as good a time as any, since Sören was on his date with Van.  
  
The threesome from last night left Dooku feeling  _energized_ , and he spent some of the late morning into early afternoon at the gym. The endorphin rush from the workout added to his giddy feeling, though he was also pleasantly relaxed enough after taking the scenic route home that he opted for a nap.  _Hopefully I'll need it,_  he thought to himself, blushing, before sleep claimed him.  
  
The alarm woke him up, and he showered and changed. Then he wrangled Snúdur into his cat carrier, put a can of food and a small pouch of dry with a spare food and water dish in a bag, and walked down the street to the cottage Maglor was renting from his neighbors.  
  
_They'll be coming back in two weeks. What then?_  Dooku wondered, as he walked.  
  
Maglor opened the door before Dooku even knocked. They just stood there for a moment, looking at each other, before Maglor gestured and said, "Yes, come in," sounding as nervous as Dooku felt.  
  
From inside the cat carrier Snúdur meowed, as if he had been in there for hours instead of twenty minutes. Dooku set the carrier down and opened it, and Snúdur came out to start sniffing around.  
  
"Well," Maglor said, looking at the clock, "shall we head out?"  
  
"Yes. Do you know where we're going, do you need suggestions, or...?"  
  
Maglor smiled. "I have a reservation," he said, meeting Dooku's eyes.  
  
Dooku felt that return of giddy hopefulness, his stomach fluttering, the feeling getting stronger as Maglor took his hand. They held hands all the way to the Jaguar, and Dooku reluctantly let go so they could get in.  
  
The reservation was for a seafood restaurant on the bay. Maglor had the stereo playing as they drove. "How was your day?" he asked Dooku, keeping his eyes on the road.  
  
"It was decent."  
  
"Did you do anything interesting?"  
  
"Not terribly. Chores, and I went to the gym." Maglor looked over at him, eyeing him up and down; Dooku felt his face flush. Dooku went on, "I usually go to the gym three times a week anyway, but I felt particularly energized today."  
  
"I see." A little smile.  
  
"What I would have liked... one of the few things I miss about living in the United Kingdom... an outlet for fencing. There isn't really anywhere around here, or anyone I can practice with -"  
  
"You can practice with me, sometime." Maglor glanced over at him with a raised eyebrow. "I know how to use a sword."  
  
Dooku's mind immediately went in the gutter, the heat in his face intensifying. But he just nodded and said, "Thank you. I'd like that. Perhaps this weekend?"  
  
"That would be fine with me, we could spar while Sören works on art, probably."  
  
"You'll have to go easy on an old man, I know you've done the real thing, actually fought in battle with a sword -"  
  
"I know how to not kill you, I think. I'll try not to, anyway." Maglor leered. "I make no promise for horizontal sword play, though."  
  
Dooku laughed, and felt like he was melting in his seat. He couldn't even make words at that in response, his fluster all the worse when Maglor reached out briefly to stroke his face.  
  
A few minutes later, Dooku's nerves settled down enough to ask, "And what did you do today, sir?"  
  
"My day started off with a phone call from  _Frankie_ , of all people, threatening to beat me up if I ran off on Sören."  
  
"Ah, yes." Dooku smiled fondly, nodding. "Some time after the breakup, when I decided I needed to try to fix things, I went to her flat hoping Sören would be there, not knowing he'd already left for Iceland." His smile deepened. "She punched me."  
  
Maglor laughed. "Did she."  
  
"Yes. She has a mean right hook, I was sore for days afterward. She's a dear. She beat up Justin, according to Sören. It will be nice to see her again next week at the wedding."  
  
"I was invited to the wedding, just so you know."  
  
"Ah, good. You can ride down with us, perhaps? Sören wants to drive to Reykjavik instead of fly, he likes the road trip."  
  
"I like road trips myself, especially if we can listen to music while we're on the road. So yes, I'd like that." Maglor frowned. "I heard Vanimórë was also invited -"  
  
"That's his name...?"  
  
"That's his name."  
  
"He's an Elf, like you?"  
  
"More or less."  
  
Dooku found that response interesting but could sense tension in Maglor at Van being brought up so he didn't press it.  
  
"- Anyway, is it too much to ask, if I'm coming down with you guys, that we not take Vanimórë in the same vehicle? Four tall men might be a bit crowded in your jeep."  
  
"That would be fine," Dooku said, nodding.  
  
"I'll have to make arrangements for Auli that weekend -"  
  
"One of Sören's students is looking after Snúdur for that time, so I suppose he can also ask if she'll watch Auli as well."  
  
"All right. But anyway, yes, Frankie threatened me, Margrét invited me to the wedding, and to the family chat server. After all of that, I took Auli to the park to run, then I practiced for a bit." Maglor looked back at him. "I finally took out my harp."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"It had been in a case under my bed. I haven't played in years, because of... associations. But it felt time."  
  
Dooku could feel the gravity of those words, that Maglor had some kind of emotional breakthrough. He reached out, despite his shyness, and squeezed the Elf's knee. Maglor's bad hand covered his, gently rubbing. Dooku felt the flood of warmth again, wanting very much for Maglor to pull over so he could take Maglor in his arms for a moment and tell him  _It's OK, it's going to be OK._  But Maglor kept driving. "It's not too much farther," Maglor said.  
  
They ate in companionable silence, at a table with a nice view of the bay. Maglor took Dooku's hand under the table, and Dooku could feel his face on fire throughout the meal, too flustered to speak, but happy nonetheless. After they finished, Maglor drove them to the Goðafoss.  
  
They got out of the Jaguar and walked around the falls together, hand in hand. At the edge of the falls they stopped to look at the breathtaking view, and Dooku found himself reaching for the small container of coins he kept in his pocket, to make exact change when he wasn't using a debit or credit card. He pulled out a 1  _krónur_ coin.  
  
It was a silly superstition - one he'd picked up from Sören - but nonetheless, he flung the coin into the falls, wishing that the three of them would be happy together for a long time to come.  
  
They sat together for awhile, watching the falls, still holding hands. Finally Maglor turned to Dooku and said, "May I ask you a question, and may I ask that you answer me completely, 100% honestly, even if you think the truth is something I don't want to hear?"  
  
Dooku felt his stomach start to drop.  _Oh no._  He didn't want things to get awkward, or possibly end. He swallowed hard and nodded.  
  
Maglor looked down. "The last time you and I got together, just the two of us, I had quite a lot to drink, and, it's been my observation that ever since that night, up until last night, you'd been avoiding me. I would like to know why, and specifically, if I'd said anything under the influence that made you uncomfortable with me. My kind doesn't forget things, usually, but I was very, very, very drunk, and I can't help but get the impression something happened."  
  
Dooku nodded. He took a deep breath. "You fell asleep on me, and I tucked you in before I left, wanting you to be comfortable." Maglor turned to give him a little smile, Dooku heard  _that was very kind of you_  in the back of his head, and Dooku smiled back. Then his expression went back to neutral. "You called me Uncle."  
  
Maglor kept a poker face, but his eyes widened. "I see."  
  
"I don't think you do." Dooku looked out at the falls, sighed, and looked back at Maglor.  _Here it comes._  His voice lowered, even though it was just them at the falls. "Macalaurë... I have feelings for you. I was not expecting to fall in love a second time, but I did. Both you and Sören occupy a place in my heart. And when you called me Uncle, whilst drunk, it rather... crushed my hopes. Because I couldn't help but think you simply thought of me as an uncle -"  
  
Maglor raised an eyebrow. "Did he tell you?"  
  
Dooku nodded. "He did. So now I understand that it wasn't a lack of interest on your part, and of course there was last night, but sexual desire isn't the same as romantic feelings -" Dooku looked away again.  
  
"Nicolae." Maglor's voice compelled his gaze.  
  
And then Maglor seized his face, and kissed him, hard. Dooku moaned into the kiss, kissing back for all he was worth, emotions crashing through him like the falls before them.  
  
They pulled apart, breathing hard. Maglor stroked his face. "Nicolae. It's not just physical, for me." He took Dooku's hand in his bad hand, and kissed it. "I love you, too."  
  
This time Dooku initiated the kiss. Then Maglor rose, pulled him to his feet, and they kissed again. And again. Dooku could feel himself hardening, and the urge to take him right there, in the grass, but he held back.  
  
They got in the Jaguar and headed back to Akureyri. "So you don't judge me," Maglor said.  
  
"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little uncomfortable with the concept of avuncular incest, but you're not human, and you were consenting adults, I take it."  
  
"Very consenting, yes."  
  
Dooku nodded. He felt uncomfortable for an additional reason that he couldn't place, thinking of his past life memories when he was someone called  _Ñolo_  and wondering if he'd ever known Maglor, or his uncle, but that felt preposterous considering how long ago that was - his soul couldn't be twenty thousand years old plus, could it? - and in any case, he didn't feel that now was the time to bring it up.  
  
"We were, by the way, judged for the incest. We were judged for any desire and sexual actions with our own gender, incestuous or not. The Valar saw us as an abomination. But we couldn't be anything other than what we were, what we were created us to be, fire calling to fire. I used to  _hate_  myself for wanting my father, wanting my uncle, the way I did, and then, after all the years I spent alone without them, grieving them, I decided the Valar had gone too far with their punishment. If I could do it all over again, I would have never pushed my father away. I would have  _gladly_  been with him just to spite them for what they did to me, my family, my people, because more than anything else, I think we were judged for our defiance and our pride." Maglor's eyes flashed, and Dooku felt a frisson down his spine, strangely aroused by the fire of the anger seething in him. "We were on our way to becoming gods. Vanimórë tells me that where he comes from, my family and I have, in fact, ascended and that is what we are now."  
  
" _What._ "  
  
Maglor took a deep breath. "...I see you don't know that part yet."  
  
"No. I'm still processing that Van - Vanimórë - is not even human. You're telling me he comes from... another universe...?"  
  
Maglor nodded. "He's seen multiple universes, from what he tells me. We... maybe shouldn't talk about this now, that's something for him to tell you, I think."  
  
"All right."  
  
A moment of silence and Maglor continued, "We could have been gods, and the Valar treated us as their playthings. When we didn't follow their neat little script for what they wanted for us, when we, gods forbid, had minds of our own,  _desires_  of our own..." He shook his head. "The Silmarils each had a piece of my father's soul. They didn't care about replacing the light of the damn Trees, if they'd cared so much about the Trees they never would have been burned in the first place. My father thought they even let it happen so they could make some sort of excuse to claim the Silmarils. Whether or not that particular theory is true... they knew what the Silmarils were, and they wanted to destroy my father. Destroy  _us_ , the Noldor. We knew that, and that was why we swore that Oath, terrible that it was. Because of what it would  _mean_ , for the Silmarils to fall into the wrong hands. And the Doom they meted out to us is far worse than anything any of us had ever done, worse than the kinslaying, and I say this regretting the kinslaying. It did not merit this eternal torment.  _Tears unnumbered ye shall shed._  I am living  _fucking_  proof of that, Nicolae." His voice was suddenly raw. "But my father would say, it was never about the kinslaying, never about the bloodshed, never about an Oath we could not keep - the Doom was because we would not give the Valar what they wanted. We would not give them the  _power_  -" His voice choked off.  
  
Dooku could feel Maglor's pain, across their bond -  _oh, we have a Force bond now, hm_  - and he himself hurt for Maglor, wanting once again to hold him. They drove a few minutes in silence, and at last Dooku said, reaching out to pet him, "Macalaurë, I cannot begin to make up for all the years of loneliness and grief you have endured. And I do not have many years left. But with what I do have, I want to make you happy. Not simply because of what you have endured. But because you are someone I love."  
  
Maglor took Dooku's hand, and squeezed it.  
  
They pulled in to the cottage. Dooku fed the cat, and Maglor fed the dog, and then they sat on the couch together. Dooku finally broke the silence with, "What was he like, your uncle?"  
  
"You remind me a lot of him, actually." Maglor nodded. "Serious, stern at times, wise, justice-minded. Sören is a lot like my father - passionate, obsessive with his creativity, temperamental but also very warm, a good sense of humor and a bit of sass and audacity. You and Sören are like watching my father and uncle all over again. They loved each other deeply and it was beautiful to see, as it is beautiful to see with the two of you. They were beautiful making love together, as the two of you are. They balanced each other out perfectly, as the two of you complement and balance each other out." Maglor sighed. "I loved - still love - both of them very much. I can't help but wonder if they somehow guided me to find both of you."  
  
"I feel rather ridiculous now that I had worried you calling me 'Uncle' was a sign of rejection."  
  
Maglor managed a laugh at that. "The very opposite. I was madly in love with him." He took a deep breath then. "When I took out my harp earlier... the song I was practicing... I had composed something for my uncle, when I asked him to, um, be my coming of age present."  
  
"Oh." Dooku found himself blushing at this. "Would you... would you mind playing it for me?"  
  
Maglor was also blushing, now. "It's been a long time since I played harp for an audience, Nicolae, but for you, I will."  
  
The harp was in Maglor's bedroom and he dragged it out, then headed in the direction of the yard. "This would be better off played outside. I had played it for Fingolfin in a garden."  
  
Dooku sat, and for the next half-hour he was treated to one of the most beautiful pieces of music he'd ever heard. Maglor's composition was on par with the old classical masters if not better. He was moved to tears by the cycles of the song, expressing longing and uncertainty, desire building to no longer being able to help anything but a bold declaration of passion, and then something more gentle and warm, like the way sun broke through clouds after a storm.  
  
He also got the uncanny sense when the song was over that he'd heard it before, wondering once again if his soul was indeed old enough to have crossed paths with Maglor, if Maglor had performed the piece for an audience he happened to witness. He didn't know, and he didn't feel like trying to poke at those feelings right now. Just all he was feeling in this moment - realizing he was the first person Maglor had played harp for in so many years, that this was an act of intimacy for him, that his love was returned... it was overwhelming. He was starting to cry, though he tried to contain it, muster up his dignity.  
  
Maglor's eyes were also bright with tears.  
  
Dooku got up and went over to him. "That was exquisite." He drew Maglor to his feet. "You are exquisite." He kissed him, softly.  
  
Maglor carried the harp back inside, leaving it in the living room. He went to the kitchen, as Dooku admired the craftsmanship of the harp, the etched pattern of its body. Maglor came out with moscato, watching Dooku look the harp over.  
  
"This is how old...?" Dooku braced himself, preparing to hear Renaissance - finding himself curious what exactly Maglor was up to during the Renaissance.  
  
"Fourth Age."  
  
Dooku exhaled sharply.  
  
"Here." Maglor gestured to the couch. "I'm in the mood to be less serious for awhile."  
  
"All right. Shall we watch  _Metalocalypse_?"  
  
They did, drinking wine - enough to relax, not enough to get drunk - and as the episodes wore on, they went from simply sitting next to each other, to curling up together. At last Maglor was leaning on him again and Dooku found himself playing with Maglor's hair, delighting in the pointy ears. He couldn't resist touching one of the points, and heard Maglor's breath hitch.  
  
Dooku rubbed Maglor's scalp, who snuggled deeper. "Mmmm, that's nice."  
  
"Good. I want to spoil you." Dooku kissed the top of his head.  
  
Maglor looked up at him. "I want to spoil you, too."  
  
They kissed, and soon the kissing turned into a full makeout session on the couch, like a couple of horny teenagers, Dooku on his back with Maglor on top of him, necking, caressing each other, hard cocks straining against their trousers, grinding. Dooku played with the points of Maglor's ears, rubbing them between his thumb and forefinger, licking them, nibbling and sucking on them, cock throbbing at the sound of Maglor's moans, thrusting up against him. At last, Maglor began to undo the buttons of Dooku's black shirt, kissing and licking the exposed flesh. When Dooku's shirt was unbuttoned all the way, Maglor rubbed his nose in Dooku's chest hair, with a little sigh.  
  
"You... you like that?" Dooku knew Sören loved his body hair, but he was surprised that an Elf liked it so much, judging from Maglor's naturally smooth skin.  
  
"I love it. You're my white wolf." Maglor started licking the chest hair, and peeled the shirt back to expose the nipples, taking one between his teeth.  
  
"I think..." Dooku gasped and shuddered as Maglor suckled. "We should take this to the bedroom now."  
  
"You're right." Maglor got up, and took Dooku's hands, helping him off the couch even though he didn't need the help. For a moment they just stood there, looking into each other's eyes, and then Maglor finally dropped his glamour, which had been up while they were at dinner and the falls, and they kissed passionately.  
  
They undressed each other on the way to the bed, leaving clothes strewn across the house, not caring. They were naked before they even got in Maglor's room, and Maglor marched him back towards the bed, the two still kissing, hands roaming over each other, hard cocks rubbing together. Dooku climbed onto the bed and Maglor climbed over him, a predatory look in his eyes that made Dooku shiver.  
  
Maglor lay on top of him and they clung to each other, kissing like their lives depended on it, cock rubbing cock, precum leaking between them. As Dooku lay there with his arms around Maglor, kissing him again and again, it felt almost like they were being reunited, like something he didn't even know was missing had fallen into place. It felt so  _right_  to lay there with him, and just a couple years ago Dooku didn't think his life or his heart had room for one person in it, let alone two - but here he was, and there was no going back. It felt like he had always been meant for this, somehow.  
  
At last Maglor resumed what he'd started on the couch, kissing and licking Dooku's chest, fingers walking, paying special attention to the nipples, smiling with satisfaction at Dooku's deep moans and the way he shuddered as Maglor explored him. Maglor's mouth and hands went lower, and lower still, with Dooku arching to him, savoring all the sensations coursing through him, deliciously sensitive. Finally, after close to an hour of just exploring, Maglor took Dooku's cock into his mouth, sucking slowly, eyes burning. Dooku lay back and enjoyed it, both the feel of Maglor's mouth wrapped around him, cock gliding in and out, and the feeling of  _hunger_  he sensed from Maglor, like Maglor wanted this as badly as he did, needed it, craved it,  _ached_  for it.  
  
Maglor worked his tongue as he sucked, and when he'd been down there awhile he started to suck harder and faster, until Dooku's hips were rolling, gently fucking his mouth, his hands in Maglor's hair. "I'm getting close," he warned.  
  
"Mmmmmm."  _I want to taste you._  
  
A few minutes later Maglor got his wish, Dooku letting out a hoarse shout as he spilled into Maglor's mouth. He could feel Maglor sipping at him, swallowing; he could feel the primal  _satisfaction_  across their bond, and when Maglor shuddered a minute later, making a little whimper with his mouth still latched around Dooku's cock, drinking him to the dregs, Dooku realized Maglor had also come. That was proven a minute later when Maglor rose up, his own cum coating his hand, which he brought to Dooku's mouth to taste. Dooku licked and sucked his fingers clean, and then licked and kissed the palm, nuzzling the scar there.  
  
"I love you," Dooku husked, before taking Maglor's mouth with a kiss.  
  
When they pulled apart, Maglor stroked his face and said, "I love you, too."  
  
They kissed again. Maglor was either still hard or hard again, gently rubbing against his thigh. Dooku needed time to recharge, at his age, but he knew what would get him going. "Here, love," he said, his hand straying to play with Maglor's cock. "I want to return the favor." He patted his shoulders.  
  
It took a moment for Maglor to register what Dooku was offering, and then he climbed up, positioning himself to sit on Dooku's shoulders, his cock in Dooku's face. Dooku took a moment to rain tender little kisses from the head down the shaft, making Maglor smile, before Dooku took his first lick at the precum pooling in the slit. "Lovely," he said, before licking down the shaft, making Maglor gasp, and then back up, making him gasp again.  
  
He sucked at Maglor slowly, lazily, teasing him, and then more intently, with Maglor slowly rolling his hips, unrestrained in his moans and sighs. Dooku's hands roamed where they could touch, worshiping the beautiful Elf with his fingers, in awe of him. When he sensed Maglor was getting close, he took Maglor's cock out of his mouth, grabbed Maglor's hips and pulled him forward, and slipped his tongue into Maglor's channel, his own cock twinging at the sound Maglor made as his tongue began to lick inside him. Dooku's tongue found the prostate right away, brushing in slow, deliberate strokes, then harder and faster, until he was viciously devouring him and Maglor was shuddering, panting, grabbing the headboard for dear life, swearing in Elvish. Dooku thought about bringing him off just like that, with his tongue, but just before Maglor could come he gasped out, "Stop."  
  
Dooku stopped, and Maglor pulled back. "Is something wrong...?"  
  
"I want to come with you inside me." Maglor's eyes were pleading, urgent.  
  
Dooku couldn't say no to that - he was hard again, his cock completely slick with precum. Maglor reached over to grab a bottle of lube, and poured it over Dooku's cock, then Dooku poured lube over his fingers and began working them inside Maglor as they kissed, one finger, then two, then three, with Maglor riding his fingers, moaning. He was right on that edge again, and he pulled back and straddled Dooku's hips. Dooku watched as Maglor sank down and he slowly slipped into Maglor's opening - he watched the look of rapture on Maglor's face as he was filled, like he had been waiting for this a long, long time, even though they had only known each other a matter of months.  
  
At last he was all the way in, and they both cried out together. Maglor took his hands and said, "I love you."  
  
"I love you."  
  
Maglor rode him slowly, sensually. Dooku enjoyed the show, watching his cock slide in and out of him, watching Maglor's gorgeous body as he gracefully rolled his hips, hands continuing to roam over him and play with his chest hair and the hair on his arms and legs. After awhile Maglor leaned down to kiss him, and then Dooku leaned up against the pillows so he was sort of sitting up, and he began to kiss Maglor's neck and shoulders, enjoying the sounds he made. He enjoyed the sounds even more as he feasted on Maglor's nipples, teasing them into hard peaks, and Maglor rocked against him harder and faster. Soon, Dooku's hands were on Maglor's hips and he was thrusting into him as Maglor bucked like he was riding a wild bull, his cries louder and louder. Dooku's arms encircled Maglor and Maglor reached out for him, pulling Dooku close to his heart, with Dooku kissing him there. "I love you," Dooku moaned in rhythm to their thrusts. "I love you... I love you..."  
  
And then he was so far gone he couldn't make words anymore, the two moaning together, completely lost in passion. Dooku held back, waiting for Maglor's release, and a moment later there it was, Maglor trembling as he threw his head back and cried out, " _Nicolae!_ "  
  
Dooku felt the clenching, gripping, pulsing of Maglor's contractions around him, and the warmth of Maglor's seed spilling over his stomach. Two thrusts and he moaned, "Macalaurë.  _Yes,_  love..."  
  
"Gods, I love you." Maglor was gasping for breath, still shaking, still contracting around him, spilling over him. He shuddered again as he felt Dooku spending into him, heard the deep groans Dooku made as he gave into the bliss, falling into light.  
  
Dooku stirred a little while later, tangled up with Maglor on the bed, stroking and petting the flood of dark hair. Maglor looked like he was sleeping, cradled against him, but wasn't, opening his eyes when he felt Dooku looking at him. He smiled and leaned in for a kiss. Dooku was still inside him, and could feel the cum pooling out of Maglor, making him laugh a little at the mess.  
  
"That was amazing," Dooku said. He looked into Maglor's eyes, and kissed his forehead. "You are amazing."  
  
"So are you." Maglor claimed his mouth, a soft sweet kiss at first, that became heated again. Dooku was surprised as he felt his cock waking up again, not thinking originally he would have it in him for a third round.  
  
Maglor grinned as he felt Dooku hardening inside him. "Oh, my."  
  
"I..." Dooku gave him a shy look. "Is it all right...?"  
  
" _Please._  I need this. I need  _you_..."  
  
Overcome by passion, Dooku found himself pushing Maglor, rolling him onto his back, still inside him. They kissed hard, and Dooku began to thrust, slowly, shivering as Maglor's fingers walked down his spine.  
  
"I love you." Dooku kissed, licked, and nibbled at his neck and throat.  
  
"I love you." Maglor kissed his mouth again, fingers playing through the chest hair. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I didn't want to get my hopes up, if you rejected me -"  
  
Dooku laughed at that. "Oh, no. No rejection here." His voice lowered. "Only desire." He kissed Maglor again.  
  
"I didn't want to  _hope_ , at all." Maglor's eyes misted as Dooku stroked his face. "I have lived so long without hope."  
  
"No, Macalaurë, you have merely  _survived_  without hope." Dooku kissed him softly. "Now, you live. While you can. While we both can."  
  
Maglor wrapped his arms around him, holding him tight, and kissed him hard. "Give me hope, Nicolae. Give me life."  
  
Dooku began pounding him into the mattress, loving the way he screamed, and before they both could come he slowed down, teasing and tormenting them both, kissing Maglor until they were both breathless. Again and again they reached that peak and held back, until they were both shaking, gasping, and exploded together, kissing again as they climaxed, one beautiful, seemingly endless note of joy.  
  
Across their bond, as they held each other in that place of brilliant light, Dooku told him what he'd been wanting to say for hours:  _It's OK now. It's going to be OK._


	35. Shine On, You Crazy Diamond

**Shine On, You Crazy Diamond**

 

After he came back from his night with Vanimórë, on Saturday morning, Sören stopped at the cabin to shower and change, putting on skinny jeans, his Joy Division shirt, and tied his hair up into a loose man bun. Then he packed the supplies he'd be needing for the weekend, including a canvas and some paints. Then he walked up the street to the cottage where Maglor was staying.  
  
It was late morning, a little after 11 AM, and Maglor's Jaguar was in front of the cottage. The lights weren't on, and Dooku's jeep was parked down the street in front of the cabin, so Sören assumed they were out, probably walking Auli. He stooped to reach for the spare key that he knew Vigdís and Páll kept under the welcome mat, even though there was hardly reason for anyone to lock one's doors out here.  
  
When he walked in he heard the jangle of Auli's collar, who trotted over to him for pettings. Sören knelt to pet the dog, and then he saw his cat, who had been sleeping on the couch and yawned and stretched. Sören came over to pet Snúdur, too, who headbutted him and purred. Sören headed to the kitchen, but stopped in his tracks when he saw the harp, ornately etched and gleaming in the light from the window, looking like something out of a myth. "Holy  _shit_ ," he said under his breath.  
  
After taking a moment to look the harp up and down, he went to the kitchen and replenished the food and water for Snúdur and Auli, and then he decided to have a look in Maglor's bedroom.  
  
Maglor and Dooku were tangled up together on the bed, naked in each other's arms, legs entwined, spent cocks plastered together, their torsos painted with each other's cum. It was a deliciously debauched sight, and Sören found himself getting hard looking at them. Quietly, he took off his Doc Martens, then his clothes, unbound his hair, and climbed into bed with them. They stirred when they felt him climbing over them, and they reached out to pull him in, taking turns kissing him.  
  
Then Dooku looked at the clock. "Oh dear."  
  
"Sleep in?" Sören raised an eyebrow, amused.  
  
"Yes and no. We woke up a couple hours ago, and, er. We cuddled, and that led to more -"  
  
"-I see that." Sören got the mental image of them kissing, rubbing their cocks together to climax, and he shuddered, his own cock throbbing now.  
  
"- and I suppose we fell back asleep, after." Dooku blushed. "You just got in, I assume?"  
  
"I did, and I had to feed the cat and dog because you lazy butts were still in bed." Sören booped Dooku's nose, then Maglor's. "But at least that's taken care of." Sören gestured to his hard cock. "Now there's something else to take care of."  
  
Maglor and Dooku looked at each other, as if they were communicating something privately between them, and then they both dove down, but Maglor got to Sören's cock first, laughing as he took it into his mouth, and Dooku shook his head and laughed, coming up to kiss Sören.  
  
Maglor sucked Sören's cock greedily as Sören and Dooku kissed and caressed; Dooku got hard again and Sören reached down to stroke him. Sören and Dooku got to that edge together, their touch more feverish, and Dooku began to kiss, lick and nibble Sören's neck and shoulder, then down to his nipples, Sören's hand working him harder and faster. Between kisses on Sören's neck, Dooku rasped, "I want to watch you come in his mouth, and then I want to drink it from his kiss."  
  
"Oh  _god_..." Sören shuddered, arching, panting, thrusting into Maglor's mouth, overcome by the delicious mental image of that, and the feeling of  _lust_  for this new side of his husband, a new chapter in exploring his sexuality. With one hand still stroking Dooku's cock, he grabbed a fistful of Maglor's hair with the other hand. "I'm so fucking close..."  
  
"Mmmmmm." Maglor cupped Sören's balls and gently rubbed them, and the fingers of his other hand slipped into Sören, finding the prostate, rubbing in circles, making Sören howl and thrust harder into his mouth.  
  
"I want to taste you," Sören growled at Dooku.  
  
He obliged, crawling up, kneeling before Sören's mouth. Sören swallowed him to the hilt, looking up at him, as Dooku's glance went back and forth between Sören's full lips wrapped around his cock, and Maglor devouring Sören like he was starving for it. It didn't take long, Dooku coming into Sören's mouth the instant Sören spent into Maglor's mouth, squeezing each other's hands, Sören crying out around the cock in his mouth, gratified by Dooku's own hoarse shout of release. Across their bond they felt that sense of oneness, coming together, not knowing where one ended and the other began for one long moment of burning ecstasy.  
  
Sören watched as Maglor came up to kiss Dooku as he'd requested, stroking himself furiously as he and Dooku kissed hard. Sören's mouth was still full of Dooku's cum, and when Maglor and Dooku pulled apart, breathing hard, Sören grabbed Maglor's hair again to turn his face so they could kiss, so Maglor could taste Dooku on him. Sören reached down to stroke Maglor's cock, slick with precum, and his other hand let go of Maglor's hair, taking a journey to stroke his face, then wander over his chest, pinching a nipple.  
  
Maglor gasped into the kiss and his eyes widened as if from shock, and for a second Sören thought he was going to come, and then he felt himself roughly grabbed and flipped onto his stomach, with Maglor swearing as he reached for the lube. Sören whimpered into the pillows, knowing what was up, and thrust out his ass at him. A moment later Maglor slipped into him, taking him from behind, his turn to grab Sören's curls as he drove into him mercilessly. Sören bucked his hips back at him, matching Maglor's rhythm, fucking himself on Maglor's cock just as hard as Maglor was fucking him. He felt Maglor's balls slapping his from behind, which drove him even crazier. "Yesyesyesyes _yes_ ," Sören panted. "Get it get it get it..."  
  
The bed was slamming against the wall. Sören grabbed the slats of the headboard, white-knuckled. He was exquisitely sensitized from just having come, and Maglor's cock took him over the edge in record time, coming again, spraying into the mattress. Sören could feel Maglor's own release across their bond, giving in to the feel of Sören contracting around him, and Sören screamed into the pillows as Maglor spent deep into him, a few last savage thrusts before he collapsed onto Sören's back, panting, moaning, twitching with the throes of orgasm. Maglor's hands took Sören's, squeezing, then just holding them, the two sighing together. Sören's toes curled against Maglor's calves, and Maglor nuzzled the back of his neck and shoulder, planting a tender little kiss in the curve of Sören's neck.  
  
After awhile Sören was vaguely aware that Maglor had slipped out of him and was curled up next to him now, holding him. He could hear Dooku puttering around in the kitchen. He snuggled into Maglor's shoulder, with Maglor tightening his arms around him.  
  
"I love you, you know," Maglor whispered, smoothing Sören's curls.  
  
"I love you." Sören squeezed him.  
  
Then Sören heard the sound of a cell phone going off. It wasn't his. Maglor made a noise, and Sören opened his eyes to watch Maglor sitting up, grumbling. Sören saw Maglor's phone on top of his dresser across the room and used the Force to bring it over so Maglor wouldn't have to get up, flomping back on him as Maglor squinted at the number and said, "I have to take this."  
  
Sören closed his eyes, relaxing again at the sound of Maglor's voice. "Hello? Yes, this is. ...I see. Yes, as I mentioned I'd be willing to pay any expenses for her care, so please give your vet this number so I can set up payment, all right? ...Oh, wonderful, thank you so much! ...I should still be around in November, yes. Thank you. _Takk._  Have a great weekend and call me when they're ready!"  
  
Maglor hit End. Sören sat up, curious. "Remember Auli's little romp in the park a few weeks ago?" Maglor asked. Sören nodded, giggling at the memory. "That was the Corgi's owner. The Corgi did in fact get pregnant. The litter of puppies should be ready to be weaned in mid-November if everything goes according to schedule, and she's giving me the first pick of the litter."  
  
"Awwwww." Sören hugged him tight. "That's so good. Cos I know you're attached to Auli and he's Vigdís and Páll's dog and they're coming back soon and they're not likely to give him away to you."  
  
"I'll miss him, yes. But... this works out. I'm getting a dog."  
  
"You definitely need a dog. Because you definitely have PTSD, like I do, from everything you've been through. I find having a pet to be really therapeutic and in your case, your dog can be your service animal? Like I know you don't get human diseases and going to a doctor is not happening, but you could still find some way to get him registered so he can come with you places, keep your nerves down -"  
  
"I'll think about it. That's a bit of trouble for my handlers to go to -"  
  
"- Maybe Van can help?"  
  
Maglor's jaw set. "I'd prefer to ask him for as few favors as possible, if it's all the same to you."  
  
Sören sighed. "I wish you didn't hate him so much. If he didn't care about you he wouldn't have gone to all this trouble for you. For all of us."  
  
Maglor looked away. "Can we change the subject?"  
  
Dooku chose that moment to step in the doorway. He was fully clothed now. "I'm making breakfast. Well, a late breakfast. A brunch, if you will. I'll bring it in when it's ready."  
  
"You're so good to us." Sören blew him a kiss.  
  
"It's nice having people to spoil." Dooku smiled. Then he folded his arms. "But even though I'm indulging you with breakfast in bed, you should probably get out of bed at some point, because I do have to run to the store to get supplies if we're going to eat later, and, Macalaurë, you had expressed interest in sparring this weekend? The forecast is calling for rain tomorrow so unless you want to spar in the rain -"  
  
"Today is fine." Maglor nodded. "After breakfast perhaps you and I can take Auli for a walk, then go to the store, then spar." Maglor looked at Sören. "And perhaps later this evening, you and I could set up camp in the living room, your art while I compose, like old times."  
  
"I would love that." Sören kissed him hard.  
  
"Perfect." Dooku nodded. "I'll be back momentarily."  
  
Dooku brought them breakfast in bed, cheese omelettes with home fries. Sören loved it - this was already the perfect start to the day.  
  
He put his clothes back on and did dishes, while Dooku and Maglor made last-minute preparations for their walk and the trip to the store; Maglor told Dooku about the puppies, and Dooku's face lit up.  
  
There was a reason for that besides the joy of a new, cute puppy, which would be good for Maglor's soul. "So you will in fact be here in November," Dooku said.  
  
Maglor nodded. "I told you I wouldn't run off, and I meant it. I swore it to Sören. I'll... look for a place in Akureyri, or someplace in one of the nearby towns, a reasonable driving distance, if there's nothing in Akureyri."  
  
Dooku and Sören looked at each other then. Sören could feel the wheels turning in Dooku's brain - they were turning in his as well - but it wasn't quite time to roll out the beginning of an idea, it needed to be thought on and developed a little more. But the fact that Dooku felt it too...  
  
"We'll see you later." Dooku teasingly wagged a finger at Sören. "Stay out of trouble, you."  
  
Sören flipped him the middle finger with a grin. "I am trouble."  
  
While Dooku and Maglor were out, Sören got back to work on the sketch he'd been working on, of Dooku laying in bed in post-coital bliss. He found himself sketching Maglor and himself there now, too, and the bed was no longer a bed but a blanket spread out on grass. He could see it in his mind's eye, the three of them laying in a garden underneath the sunlight, but it was no place he'd ever been before. The plant life was vibrant and exotic.  
  
He would have to start working on the painting tonight; it was time, he could feel the  _fever_  consuming him.  
  
He was fully engrossed in the sketch when Dooku and Maglor returned, but he agreed to sit outside, continuing to sketch, as Dooku produced his rapier, which he'd brought from the cabin, and Maglor himself produced a sword, craftsmanship so beautiful it seemed unreal. There were runes of some sort etched on the blade, and a jewelled flaming star on the hilt.  
  
"Fourth Age?" Dooku asked, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"No. My harp is Fourth Age. This is older." A pause. "My father made this."  
  
Dooku's jaw dropped. So did Sören's.  
  
"I'm afraid I'm a bit rusty," Dooku said when he found his words again. "As I told you, I haven't had an outlet for fencing since I moved here -"  
  
"It's been awhile since I've had reason to bear a sword in my hand also." Maglor nodded. "Would be good to get back into regular practice, you never know if we might need it."  
  
Sören could tell that Dooku wanted to say they probably never would, then remembered who he was talking to and that reality was far weirder than anything he could imagine. Dooku nodded. "Incentive would help." A small, mischievous smile. "We could wager this battle."  
  
"We could. What do you wager?"  
  
"Whoever wins... gets their choice of sexual favor."  
  
Maglor grinned.  
  
Dooku gave him a fencing salute, and Maglor saluted in turn. They circled each other, and then Maglor took the offensive. Dooku parried and made a riposte.  
  
Sören tried to concentrate on his sketch, but he kept being distracted by the sword play. The two men seemed like they were born for this, elegant, fluid, powerful. Sören started to feel that frisson of arousal then, and after awhile he put his sketchpad down and just watched them. It took his breath away.  
  
At last the elegance became raw, primal aggression; Maglor got Dooku on the ground, his blade at Dooku's throat, who said, "I yield."   
  
Maglor helped him up, and kissed him. "Yes, you certainly will."  
  
Dooku  _blushed_ , and Sören giggled.  
  
The three men headed inside. Maglor and Dooku were both breathing hard after the fight, with Dooku more out of breath, and Sören decided to get up and brought out lemonade from the kitchen. His eyes kept wandering back to his sketchpad, but he was feeling too worked up to get back into that without making some sort of mistake, and yet had a sudden burst of creative energy that needed to be let out somehow. "You know," Sören said, "I could get started on some of the prep for dinner...?"  
  
"I got steak and fish to grill but there's other things that can be made into side dishes," Dooku said, nodding.  
  
Sören couldn't believe he was volunteering for kitchen duty - while he did it now and again, Justin's insults still lingered and he didn't cook anywhere near as often as he used to before Justin. As he walked into the kitchen and rummaged around, he felt himself smiling. It was like he was finally starting to take back some of his power, and that felt good.  
  
Sören got absorbed in chopping vegetables for a salad, and making a homemade vinaigrette. He would also stuff tomatoes with tuna and cheese and make roasted potatoes, when it got closer to the time Dooku would be grilling. Sören put on music as he worked in the kitchen, dancing around a little. He thought nothing of hearing the shower running down the hall, until he heard a deep moan.  
  
Sören continued working on the salad, and then he heard another moan, and a second deep voice moaning. Familiar moans. Curiosity got the better of him, and he put the knife down and went down the hall.  
  
The bathroom was steamy, and behind the glass shower door, Maglor and Dooku were showering together, kissing passionately, their hard cocks sliding together. Sören's breath hitched, his own cock hardening at the sight of them. They were sensually lathering each other, taking their sweet time together.  
  
Sören decided to just watch - it was fine with him if Maglor and Dooku got time to themselves now and again, as he and Maglor would have time to themselves later, and he and Dooku would have time to themselves at another time. He felt like if this was going to work, it was just as important for them to be three dyads - Sören and Maglor, Dooku and Maglor, Sören and Dooku - as it was for them to do things as a triad. He didn't mind sharing.  
  
Just the opposite, watching them.  _Fuck, they are the hottest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life._  He loved to be teased like this, which would make it all the more delicious the next time the three of them were together.  
  
When they were close to finishing their shower, Sören tiptoed back down the hall, pretending to resume work in the kitchen, and when the two men headed to Maglor's bedroom, Sören went back down the hall and watched near the door.  
  
"I wasn't expecting your choice of sexual favor to be me inside you again," Dooku remarked between kisses.  
  
"But you do it so well." Maglor smiled. Then he nipped Dooku's neck with a growl. "I want you to fuck me with that same aggression you showed out there with a sword in your hand."  
  
Dooku grinned. "We'll get there."  
  
Sören watched as Dooku worshipped Maglor's body, kissing, licking, caressing his neck and chest, paying special attention to the nipples, then down his stomach, down one hip, thigh, and calf, and up the other. At last his head was between Maglor's legs, tongue inside him, making Maglor writhe and beg, and Sören found himself with his cock out, stroking, electrified. Dooku spent some time sucking and licking the head of Maglor's cock, teasing him further, before coming up to kiss him, pouring lube into the passage, working slick fingers inside. Finally Maglor gave him a look and urged, " _Please_ , Nicolae."  
  
Dooku kissed him deep and hungry, plunging into him. He took a few slow thrusts, reveling in the way it teased Maglor even more, and then he propped a leg up on his shoulder and took him hard. Sören shuddered, knowing exactly how that felt without even feeling it across the bond - and feel it he did, his cock throbbing as he stroked himself harder and faster. They were  _delicious_  together. Sören loved to see Dooku like this, commanding, fully alive, loved to see Maglor trusting him,  _surrendering_.  
  
Maglor's noises made Sören crazy, and it took him every ounce of his restraint to not go in there and shove his cock into Maglor's mouth. One of these days, he would, knowing Maglor would love that, and Dooku would love watching it. But right now, he wanted to give them this. Even though Maglor and Dooku had met just a couple months before, it felt like there was something deep between them, like they had known each other for a very long time - it was almost like they had been separated, too, not just Maglor and Sören. He didn't understand that feeling, but it was there, and he honored it - they needed their time, just as Sören and Maglor would need theirs, later. It was all good.  
  
It was too good. Sören's knees were starting to buckle. He was jerking off harder than he could ever remember, trying to choke back the little whimpers that threatened to come out as he watched Dooku driving into Maglor, making Maglor yell and scream, as Dooku groaned and growled.  
  
And then it happened - Maglor saw Sören pleasuring himself. The sight of Sören with his cock out sent him over the edge, shooting his seed. Sören cried out with his own climax, falling to his knees, and he heard Dooku moaning, a few last hard thrusts before he lay there, shuddering and gasping in Maglor's arms, Maglor rocking him, kissing the top of his head.  
  
The hall was spinning. With the hand not covered in cum, Sören held onto the wall, shaking. He heard Maglor tell him, "Sören, come here."  
  
Sören got up, almost falling over again, and staggered into the bedroom. Dooku, still resting in Maglor's arms, gave him an amused look when he walked in.  
  
Sören approached the bed. Maglor took Sören's cum-soaked hand and started cleaning it with his tongue, sucking the fingers like he was sucking a cock, eyes burning Sören's. If Sören's orgasm had not been so intense moments ago he'd be hard again at that, and Maglor smiled knowingly as he let the fingers slip from his mouth, pressing a kiss into Sören's palm.  
  
"So naughty."  
  
Sören grinned. "I couldn't help it. You two..." He shuddered again. " _God_ , it should be illegal to be that hot together." He stroked Dooku's face, and pet Maglor's hair. "And beautiful. It's good to see you two loving each other."  
  
Maglor took Sören's hand again and kissed it, nuzzled it. He pushed Sören closer to them and rested his head against Sören's thigh for a moment. "I love both of you very much. This feels incredibly right." He looked up. "It scares the shit out of me. But it's right."  
  
"You belong to us," Sören said, sitting down on the bed beside them, leaning down so he could hold both of them. He kissed Maglor's forehead and husked, "You belong with us."  
  
  
_  
  
  
After the three cuddled for awhile, Sören got up and finished what he was doing in the kitchen, making the salad, and decided to just go ahead and make the stuffed tomatoes as well. Eventually, Maglor and Dooku got up and got dressed again. Dooku decided it was time to start marinading the steak and fish for grilling, and he told Sören he'd handle the potatoes too, "so you can get some more cuddle time in with Macalaurë."  
  
Sören and Maglor curled up together on the couch; Sören had brought his laptop with him and Maglor watched him play Stardew Valley.  
  
"You're such a big kid," he said, tousling Sören's curls. "I missed that about you."  
  
"You should play this."  
  
Maglor snorted. "Not today. But I should get my laptop out, accept the chat server invite your sister gave me before she feels insulted."  
  
"Yes, and since I'm here I can help break the ice."  
  
Maglor got up and came back a moment later with his laptop - Sören had a moment of feeling surreal that Maglor used technology, and, picking up on it, Maglor nodded and said, "I may be very old, but it's necessary to my survival to get with the times, Sören, yes."  
  
"Unlike my husband, who had a flip phone till a year ago," Sören snarked.  
  
From the kitchen Dooku bellowed, " _I heard that._ "  
  
Sören and Maglor looked at each other and cracked up laughing, then Maglor went to his e-mail and clicked the invite.  
  
**[4:08 PM] Sören:**  new chat who dis  
  
**[4:08 PM] Sören:**  @Admin we got anybody on who can get Alejandro situated  
  
Sören looked at Maglor then. "Maglor..." He took a deep breath. "My siblings, cousin and I are very close-knit. And they can do what I can do, so they're used to keeping weird shit a secret from the world. And Frankie, Dag's husband Matt, our family friends - Hans and Leja, Qui and Obi - they're all Force-sensitive too. You think I could tell them, at least...?"  
  
Maglor exhaled sharply. "The more people who know, the more of a risk it is, and even without that, this is the sort of thing I'd rather not leave on an Internet footprint, with government surveillance being what it is. Plus they'd probably have to be shown."  
  
"Ari knew, somehow. He just... did. It's why he told me to read the Silm."  
  
Maglor nodded. "But the others... well... look, Sören, let me get them past the point of wanting to stab me, we'll see them at the wedding, I'll put my feelers out and I'll take it from there, OK?"  
  
"All right."  
  
**[4:12 PM] Margrét:**  Welcome to the chat, @Alejandro - you're all set up now with roles and permissions!  
  
**[4:13 PM] Dagnýr:**  Hey hey, welcome to the madhouse.  
  
**[4:14 PM] Alejandro:**  Roles?  
  
**[4:15 PM] Dagnýr:**  If you look in the sidebar, we've got Relatives, Partners, and Family Friends. Plus some other just for fun roles, which you'll see if you mouse over things.  
  
**[4:16 PM] Margrét:**  Yup, he's been taken care of.  
  
**[4:17 PM] Alejandro:**  You gave me the role "Sören's Fuckboi".  _Really._  
  
**[4:18 PM] Margrét:**  Is there a problem  
  
**[4:19 PM] Alejandro:**  fasdygfiuagsydf kahsgdf  
  
**[4:21 PM] Margrét:**  *pats* OK, I fixed it for you.  
  
**[4:23 PM] Alejandro:**  Now it's "Sören and Dooku's Fuckboi"...  
  
**[4:24 PM] Margrét:**  Shit, I'm four minutes late to post dancing Snoop Dogg GIF.  
  
**[4:25 PM] Sören:**  hi four minutes late to post dancing Snoop Dogg GIF  
  
**[4:26 PM] Margrét:**  SÖREN  
  
**[4:26 PM] Margrét:**  BOI  
  
**[4:26 PM] Margrét:**  I SWEAR TO GOD  
  
**[4:27 PM] Sören:**  *innocent face*  
  
**[4:28 PM] Sören:**  so listen, on a (somewhat) more serious note  
  
**[4:28 PM] Sören:**  I want to thank you for giving our  ~~fuckboi~~  boyfriend an invite to the server and also to the wedding.  
  
**[4:29 PM] Margrét:**  Yeah you're welcome.  
  
**[4:29 PM] Margrét:**  But this is it now for the guest list, so don't pick up any more strays.  
  
**[4:30 PM] Sören:**  lol no I think we're good  
  
**[4:30 PM] Sören:**  who's coming, again?  
  
**[4:31 PM] Margrét:**  Right, let me pull up the sheet...  
  
**[4:36 PM] Margrét:**  OK, so besides myself and Frankie (obviously) and Kol, it's my band (two other people), about a dozen to seventeen of our friends in Reykjavik depending on who shows...  
  
**[4:38 PM] Margrét:**  Then we've got present company: Dag, Matt, Ari, you, Dooku, Alejandro, I assume Van is coming?  
  
**[4:39 PM] Sören:**  yes  
  
**[4:41 PM] Margrét:**  Qui, Obi, Hans, Leja, aunt Gitta and her wife Jane, Frankie's aunt Siobhan, and Dag had invited his professor friend, Brian Proust.  
  
**[4:43 PM] Margrét:**  That seems to be about it.  
  
**[4:45 PM] Dagnýr:**  Brian's a cool old guy. He's like a father to me.  
  
**[4:47 PM] Margrét:**  There's gonna be a small party on Friday, the night before the wedding, then the wedding itself on Saturday, and the reception.  
  
**[4:48 PM] Margrét:**  I told @Alejandro he needs to tease his hair and wear some cheesy-ass hair metal outfit and sing Duran Duran for the karaoke.  
  
**[4:50 PM] Alejandro:**  We'll see.  
  
**[4:51 PM] Sören:**  lmao I would pay money to see this  
  
**[4:52 PM] Sören:**  I've got my outfit and song already planned  
  
**[4:53 PM] Margrét:**  Should we be concerned  
  
**[4:54 PM] Sören:**  probably  
  
**[4:55 PM] Ari:**  *pokes in*  
  
**[4:56 PM] Sören:**  oh look  
  
**[4:57 PM] Ari:**  Alejandro's in here now?  
  
**[4:59 PM] Alejandro:**  Yes. Hello.  
  
**[5:01 PM] Ari:**  Well. This got a lot more interesting.  
  
**[5:03 PM] Alejandro:**  I'm going to help Nicolae in the kitchen and the grill now, if that's OK?  
  
**[5:04 PM] Dagnýr:**  no  
  
**[5:05 PM] Alejandro:**  ?  
  
_Sören Sigurdsson is typing..._  
  
**[5:05 PM] Margrét:**  oh fuuu  
  
**[5:05 PM] Dagnýr:**  shit  
  
**[5:05 PM] Sören:**  hi going to help Nicolae in the kitchen and the grill now if that's OK  
  
**[5:06 PM] Alejandro:**  :SQUINT:  
  
  
Maglor got up. "You're going to get it later."  
  
Sören grinned. "Promises, promises."  
  
  
_  
  
  
When Maglor and Dooku were almost ready to head out to the yard to grill, Sören sauntered in to the kitchen to get a drink, and smiled at the sight of them working together side by side, standing close together, shoulders touching; Dooku gently nuzzled Maglor's neck as Sören walked in.  
  
"You guys are so cute," Sören said, leaning against the wall, drinking from a small bottle of ginger ale.  
  
Dooku raised an eyebrow. "We are not  _cute_  -"  
  
Sören made the "OK" gesture with his hand. Then his eyes met Dooku's just before Dooku could return his focus to the steak, and he poked inside Dooku's mind.  
  
_Are you thinking what I'm thinking?_  He showed Dooku the mental image of a typical neighborhood in Akureyri, a row of brightly colored houses, a small yard where Maglor and Dooku were grilling outside as a little Corgi-sheepdog mix ran around, playing fetch with Sören.  
  
_Yes. But after dinner...?_  
  
_That's fine._  And Sören found himself getting choked up at the fantasy playing in his mind's eye - the  _hope_. He didn't want to cry, not now, when they'd been having such a nice day. He needed a moment of levity.  
  
"I like seeing you guys work in the kitchen," Sören said. Maglor glanced over to smile at him, and Sören said, "I've got my very own house Elf."  
  
Maglor's eyes narrowed, and Sören's laughter rang out.  
  
"Brat," Maglor said.  
  
"Get back to work, house Elf. I haven't given you any clothing, so you're not free -"  
  
Before Sören knew what was happening Maglor crossed the kitchen, and Sören let out a little squeak, put down his ginger ale, and started running through the house, Maglor chasing him. Sören made a few laps, finally stepping behind Dooku, giggling, "Hide me, Nico, help." Dooku's response was to push Sören forward, where Maglor immediately seized him, dragged him out to the living room - with Sören shrieking with laughter - and Maglor sat on an arm of the couch, pulling Sören over his knee, spanking him. Sören's laughter turned to moans, and he heard Maglor make a throaty growl, which just aroused him further.  
  
Maglor pulled Sören up and they stood there, facing each other. Sören could see the heat in his eyes, his own body twinging with desire.  
  
"You." Maglor gave Sören's ass one last playful swat.  
  
Sören grinned, and stepped forward for a little kiss - or it was meant to be a little kiss, but quickly turned heated, Maglor grabbing Sören and kissing him deep and hard.  
  
They pulled apart, panting, and Maglor shook his head. "I have to finish dinner."  
  
"Yes you do, house Elf."  
  
Maglor  _growled_  again. Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip, and felt that surge of heat from Maglor. _You're not helping._  
  
_I'm very helpful._  Sören winked at him.  
  
Sören played fetch with Auli in the yard as Maglor and Dooku grilled the steak and fish, and at last dinner was served. They took their time, enjoying everything, and Auli was allowed a small piece of unmarinated cooked steak as a treat, as Snúdur had been given a small piece of plain cooked fish. Sören once again thought of his wish, feeling his heart race with anticipation of asking.  
  
When the meal was over, after Sören did dishes, he joined Maglor and Dooku in the living room, the three of them drinking wine together. Sören's eyes met Dooku, and Dooku gave a small nod.  _It's time._  
  
"Dinner was really nice," Sören said, swirling the wine around in his glass. "This weekend has been really nice, so far."  
  
"It has." Maglor smiled.  
  
"I, um." Sören looked back at Dooku, then at Maglor. "We..." He cleared his throat. "We know you're planning on staying in Akureyri after our neighbors come back, and Nico and I were thinking... instead of you finding a place, maybe it could be the three of us finding a place. You know. If you wanted to." Sören sipped his wine.  
  
"The cabin is too small for three people," Dooku said, "but we could rent a house in Akureyri which would be big enough for the three of us, a cat and a dog."  
  
"Like a 2-bedroom. We could share a room, a bed, and have a spare room set up for art, music..."  
  
There was a long pause, with Maglor considering, and then he said, "I'd like that."  
  
"Good. We can start looking at properties this week?" Sören's heart soared.  
  
Maglor nodded. "We can."  
  
Dooku smiled and reached over to Maglor to rub and squeeze his knee.  
  
Maglor downed his wine. "But."  
  
_Oh shit, why is there a "but"._  Sören braced himself.  
  
Maglor put his glass down, looked down, collecting his thoughts, and then he looked at Sören, at Dooku, and back to Sören again. "So... this is the part where I explain to you what me not running off looks like. What us being in this for the long haul really  _means._ " He gestured to himself. "I don't age. I'm over twenty thousand years old and I still look like this. My current set of IDs has my birthday in 1976. I can, right now, get away with passing for a young-looking, well-preserved forty-three. I will probably not be able to still get away with this claiming to be fifty, even though fifty is the age when my people become legal adults."  
  
Sören found himself laughing at that, even though he shouldn't. "So I'm not even legal by your people's standards?"  
  
"Well, you're a human so it's not the same standards at all, but thirties would be our equivalent of your teenage years, yes, I suppose. I try not to think about it."  
  
A moment later Maglor went on. "Anyway... as I told you, I move around because of this. It used to be I could stay someplace ten or fifteen years without too much trouble, but after the 1970s and my run-in with the US government, I try not to stay someplace more than seven years. I have a set of handlers who are well-paid to forge documents and help me settle in to new parts of the world without too much trouble, so long as I have a little bit of an idea ahead of time where I'm going and what I can tolerate doing to pass the time - for example in Alaska, I was sole proprietor of an independent bookstore. The problem is that as time marches on and everything becomes more automated, society becomes more global, it becomes harder to disappear one place and resurface another. I took a risk coming back here - I usually don't retrace my steps. I have a fifty-year rule about visiting anyplace I've lived, so I'm not likely to be recognized. Apart from Alaska, returning to the States, this was the first time in fifty years that I broke that rule."  
  
Sören swallowed hard.  _Fifty years..._  
  
"Yes, Sören." Maglor nodded solemnly. "So you need to understand, if we're doing this - if we're really doing this - then that house you want in Akureyri, we can live that life for another five, seven years, and then we have to move. You will never see Iceland again, Sören. I  _know_  how attached you are to this country. How you came back here, to your  _home_ , after everything had gone belly-up in London, and you let the land heal you." Maglor showed Sören the mental images he'd seen of Sören visiting the falls, the Dimmuborgir, taking walks, in the days before Dooku came out from London to try to fix things. "I will be taking all that away from you. To be honest, we may not even have five to seven years - you both will have to be prepared to go on a moment's notice, if things get hot, if on the odd chance one of the people I pay to trust decides to sell us out, or something else happens. Hopefully it won't come to pass. But that is what you are getting into, if I'm staying with you. We can't stay here forever, much as I'd like to."  
  
Sören's eyes burned with tears, feeling like a piece of him was already being torn out. He loved this land of ice and fire, it was a part of him.  
  
But so was Maglor.  
  
"You are my home," Sören said.  
  
Dooku nodded. "We will follow you to the ends of the earth, Macalaurë."  
  
"You say that, but there's more." Maglor took a deep breath. "Nicolae, Sören asked me earlier if I'd be willing to tell his family about, well." He tucked a lock of hair behind the point of his ear. "I'm not saying no, but you need to understand that the more people who know, the more of a liability there is. And whether we do or don't tell them, the fact remains that when we leave and start over again elsewhere..." Maglor closed his eyes. "It's easier to make a clean break." He opened his eyes. "It's been getting harder and harder for me, as time goes on, knowing that if I get attached to people, think of them as friends, family... I inevitably have to leave them behind. And I say this as having been transient for the last millennia. I can't imagine how much harder it's going to be for you, when the time comes."  
  
"So we can't... keep in contact... with my family... at all?" Sören felt like he couldn't breathe.  
  
Maglor exhaled. "So this is the thing, Sören. I won't tell you no. It's  _possible_ , with burner phones, throwaway e-mails, arranging a visit in a location near enough to our new home yet far away enough to not send the proverbial dogs sniffing around. But it's risky. It's risky as hell. Especially with your brother being in close proximity to the Canadian and US governments with the scientific work he does. Even if you decide to take that risk, and we're fine... it's still going to hurt, for you to go from being so close-knit with them, to only being in sporadic contact with them at best. And them having to lie to keep up appearances for you, tell the world you're dead, missing, joined an ashram, what have you - they may not like doing that, that may strain things considerably."  
  
Sören felt that wrench at his heart again. His hands were shaking.  
  
Their eyes met. "It's a lot, I understand it's a lot, and unfortunately this too is part of the package of me staying. You have to decide if you think I'm worth it to lose everything you have right now, as you know it. This was why I left, not just because I didn't want to watch you die, but because I didn't want to force you to live like this and end up resenting me in ten, fifteen, twenty years."  
  
Sören and Dooku looked at each other. Dooku's own eyes were too bright, and tears were quietly flowing down Sören's cheeks.  
  
In his mind's eye, Sören saw Maglor walking along a shore, alone. Looking out to sea. So tired that the word "tired" didn't seem adequate for the exhaustion, surviving on all this time. He could feel the weight of years, the endless, bottomless ache -  
  
"You are my home," Sören repeated, "and you are my family."  
  
Dooku nodded, and put his arms around Maglor.  
  
With a shuddery sigh, Maglor buried his face in Dooku's shoulder. Dooku began to pet his hair, and Sören watched Maglor shaking, weeping quiet tears. Sören came over to the couch, squeezing in on the other side of Maglor, holding him too. Maglor let out a sob, and Sören and Dooku began rocking him. Sören reached out for Dooku's free hand, the other hand continuing to stroke Maglor's hair, and their eyes met. Dooku was crying a little too, but Sören could feel the determination in him.  
  
_As long as I draw breath, you will never be alone again._  
  
Snúdur chirped, and came over, climbing up onto Sören's lap, and then he climbed onto Maglor. Maglor began to pet the cat, who purred loudly, and Auli came over and settled at his feet.  
  
"You're stuck with us," Sören told him.  
  
"I pray you will not hate me as time goes on." Maglor gave him a sad look.  
  
"If I can keep in contact with my family at least sometimes, I think I'll manage. And I mean, I'll miss Iceland, but..." Sören remembered the trips they'd gone on - France, the Netherlands, Greece and Italy, Brazil. Their layovers in Northern Ireland, Portugal, Morocco... "We're going on an adventure."  
  
Maglor started sobbing again. "Dammit, Sören."  
  
Sören stroked his face, showed him the memory of Amsterdam in 2012, laying in a field under the huge, endless blue sky. The words Maglor had spoken to him, as they watched the clouds.  _You help me see the world through new eyes. You give me back a sense of wonder I lost a long time ago._  
  
"All the places to see," Sören said. "All the places to paint."  
  
He decided they needed another moment of levity. He got up and began to twirl around, singing  
  
_I can show you the world  
Shining, shimmering, splendid  
Tell me, princess, now when did  
You last let your heart decide?  
  
I can open your eyes  
Take you wonder by wonder  
Over sideways and under  
On a magic carpet ride  
  
A whole new world  
A new fantastic point of view  
No one to tell us "No"  
Or where to go  
Or say we're only dreaming  
  
A whole new world  
A dazzling place I never knew  
But now from way up here  
It's crystal clear  
That now I'm in a whole new world with you_  
  
Maglor laughed and cried. "You fucking dork."  
  
"You love it."  
  
"Yes." Maglor smiled. "I do."  
  
"You make a pretty Disney Princess."  
  
Maglor threw a little couch pillow at him. Sören dodged, cackling.  
  
"I thought he was a house Elf," Dooku said.  
  
Maglor shot him a look and Dooku grinned, reaching out to pat Maglor's head.  
  
"You..." Maglor grabbed Dooku, put him in a headlock, and gave him a noogie. Dooku's response was to tickle him, and the two wound up wrestling on the floor, tickling each other. Finally Sören dove and landed on top of them, and gave them both noogies. Snúdur hopped down from the couch and climbed onto the heap on the floor, stretched out across all three of them like he owned them, kneading and purring.  
  
"See, even the cat agrees," Sören said. "You belong with us."  
  
  
_  
  
Later, it began to rain and thunder outside. Dooku retreated to read and turn in for the night; Sören set up his canvas and paints, and he and Maglor made a nest in the living room, a pile of couch pillows spread with blankets in front of the fireplace so they could curl up on breaks, water and finger foods. It was like old times again, preparing for an all-nighter.  
  
Maglor played his harp, occasionally making notes. It had been one thing for Sören to draw and paint to the sound of his guitar, but the harp was something else entirely - lush, celestial. It was the perfect instrument for bringing his vision of the exotic paradise to life, the three lovers laying there, the harp ringing out a paean of love blooming, that was mirrored in the story of the flowers unfolding, the radiant bliss that seemed to create the garden space around them.  
  
It was close to three in the morning when they finally stopped to take a break, stretching out together on the pillows and blanket. Sören lay on his stomach and Maglor began to knead his shoulders and rub his back.  
  
"Mmmmmm," Sören purred. "So nice..."  
  
Maglor's hands slid up Sören's shirt, and Sören sat up to take his shirt off, smiling at the heat in Maglor's gaze as the eyes wandered to his pierced nipples. Sören lay back down and Maglor's fingers trailed over the phoenixes on his back.  
  
"I love you." Maglor leaned down and began kissing them.  
  
What had meant to be a tender, affectionate gesture turned sensual, and Sören moaned. Maglor moaned too, lips grazing Sören's spine. Sören found himself fumbling with his jeans, feverish to get the offending fabric off, desperate to be naked, be pleasured, share pleasure.  
  
Maglor rolled him over and helped him undress, and quietly took his own clothes off. Then he rolled Sören back onto his stomach, continuing to massage him, caress him, until Sören was panting, trembling, and finally couldn't take it anymore, grabbing Maglor and shoving him back onto the pillows.  
  
"Yes, love." Maglor reached up to stroke Sören's face, love in his eyes.  
  
Sören used the Force to get the lube, which was casually placed near the finger foods, the two knowing their past history. He poured lube over Maglor's hard cock, and then he sank down, both of them gasping at that first moment of union.  
  
Sören took Maglor's hands, and began to ride slowly. Time seemed to stop, as rain poured and thunder rolled outside, the two lost in each other, the slow, decadent silken heat. Maglor leaned up to kiss him, his mouth, neck, shoulders, chest, nipples, playing with the nipple rings. Sören pushed him back down on the pillows, kissing him again and again, Maglor's arms wrapped around him, thrusting into him harder, faster.  
  
At long last Sören was bucking wildly atop him, grabbing onto him for dear life. They kept on that edge, ready to come, but not ready for it to end, needing each other, needing to be one flesh, one passion...  
  
...and then it exploded, the two coming together, Sören taken into the fire, the light, the dawn, weightless, endless.  
  
_I am yours and you are mine._  
  
They lay there for awhile, and then Sören felt a water bottle being thrust at him. He drank. Maglor was wearing a robe, and Sören sat up. After sitting together, petting, they resumed their stations, Maglor continuing to work on his song, and Sören his painting. Sören was still naked, and didn't care.  
  
The thunder stopped and it was just rain, and finally, after seven AM, they decided to call it a night. Sören wasn't done yet, but he'd managed to get the three of them laying on a blanket in a garden, and just needed the rest of the background and the sky. Maglor surveyed the painting.  
  
"That's gorgeous," he said.  
  
Sören smiled. "I have no idea where that is," he said. "Just... you know, saw it, and painted it."  
  
"Well..." Maglor pointed to a bird perching on a rock. "I recognize the bird. That's a kookaburra."  
  
"Oh. That's, um, an Australian bird, right?"  
  
Maglor nodded. "Those flowers right there, those are waratahs. Also Australian."  
  
"You ever live in Australia?"  
  
"No, but I've visited a few times. It was one of the places I wanted to take you, when we were together, before."  
  
"That's amazing, cos I swear I've never seen this bird or these plants before." Sören chuckled. "Looks like we might go on holiday." Except the word he almost said, and just-in-time stopped himself from saying, wasn't  _holiday_. It was  _honeymoon_.  
  
The hair on the back of Sören's neck and arms stood on end, as he broke out in gooseflesh. He knew polygamy wasn't legal anywhere, but they could have some sort of spiritually binding commitment ceremony -  
  
_Whoa, you've been back together all of a few days and you're thinking about marriage?_  
  
Sören needed to quell the flood of emotions - now wasn't the right time to talk about that, when they'd just had one important conversation some hours ago. But  _soon_. Sören got up, and pulled Maglor up with him.  
  
They walked down the hall to where Dooku was sleeping. They took a moment to smile fondly at each other, the lovely picture of Dooku curled up and peaceful in his rest, and then they tiptoed over to the bed. Maglor let the robe slip to the floor, and Sören crawled on top of him, raining kisses over his face.  
  
Sören found himself singing, waking Dooku up with the same song he'd woken him up with on New Year's Day 2018.  
  
_Sunday morning rain is falling  
Steal some covers share some skin  
Clouds are shrouding us in moments unforgettable  
You twist to fit the mold that I am in  
But things just get so crazy living life gets hard to do  
And I would gladly hit the road get up and go if I knew  
That someday it would lead me back to you  
That someday it would lead me back to you  
  
That may be all I need  
In darkness he is all I see  
Come and rest your bones with me  
Driving slow on Sunday morning  
And I never want to leave_  
  
Sören's fingers traced Dooku's smile, eyes opening; Sören's fingers trailed lower, playing through his chest hair.  
  
_Fingers trace your every outline  
Paint a picture with my hands  
Back and forth we sway like branches in a storm  
Change the weather still together when it ends_  
  
Maglor joined him for the chorus.  
  
_That may be all I need  
In darkness he is all I see  
Come and rest your bones with me  
Driving slow on Sunday morning  
And I never want to leave_  
  
Dooku reached out to take Maglor and Sören's hands, kissing each of them in turn. He sighed deeply as they began kissing, licking, and caressing him all over, worshiping him. He moaned as Sören sucked him, and Maglor came up to kiss him, stroking his face, whispering his love between kisses. Sören was open and ready from the lovemaking earlier, and he climbed onto Dooku's cock, with Maglor getting behind him, pushing in, so both Maglor and Dooku were inside him, cocks rubbing together as Sören rode slowly.  
  
Dooku lay there, enjoying the sight of Maglor tilting Sören's face so they could kiss, Sören reaching up to wrap his arms around Maglor with Maglor's hands roaming over him, playing with the nipple rings and Sören's cock, kissing and licking his neck. They leaned down and Sören kissed him, Maglor leaned over Sören's shoulder to kiss Dooku as well. Dooku pet them, and Sören pet his face, his whiskers, nuzzling him.  
  
"I want to do this every day," Sören breathed. "I can't get enough of either of you."  
  
Dooku's response was to kiss Sören's neck, making him cry out and buck his hips.  
  
They kept the pace slow as long as possible, moans and sighs filling the room. The moans and sighs became cries and shouts when they could no longer hold back and Sören rode hard, Maglor gripping Sören's hips and driving into him harder, rubbing against Dooku faster. The three came together, screaming, and Sören had a full-body orgasm, even his nipples were throbbing as his cock spilled and spilled all over Dooku, his passage twitching around the two cocks shooting inside him, toes and fingers curling.  
  
The sound of thunder woke him up; Sören actually squeaked, and Maglor couldn't help laughing at it. Maglor was laying to their side now, and Sören gave him a playful swat.  
  
"Don't make fun of me, you thot," Sören teased.  
  
"Did you seriously just call me..."  
  
"A thot. Yes. Yes I did."  
  
Dooku laughed, and pulled Maglor against him, holding both his lovers against his chest, rocking them, petting them. "My boys."  
  
Maglor leaned up and gave him a look. "Who are you calling a boy,  _boy_?"  
  
Sören snorted.  
  
"Kids these days," Maglor muttered, and Sören howled.  
  
  
_  
  
  
It rained most of the day, and Maglor and Sören spent most of the day in bed, sleeping. They were finally woken up by Auli bounding on the bed, shaking his wet fur, as a rained-on Dooku stood in the doorway with an evil grin.  
  
Sören threw a pillow at him. "You're a thot, too."  
  
Maglor knew Sören and Dooku felt no small amount of surreality at their perception of reality being changed, with a non-human partner, a very  _old_  partner, who just happened to have relics of the First Age and Fourth Age in his possession. Maglor felt a touch of surreality now, that one of the two men who had his heart used words like "thot".  _Welcome to the twenty-first century._  
  
"Thank you for walking Auli." Maglor sat up and rubbed his face, and looked at the clock. It was almost four PM. "Shit, I didn't mean to sleep so late."  
  
"You clearly needed it." Dooku nodded. "I couldn't help but take a look at the painting in the living room, Sören. I know it's not done yet but it is lovely. Some of your finest work."  
  
"The song Maglor was playing last night, as I painted it." Sören sighed. "That was some of  _his_  finest work."  
  
Maglor felt a little warm glow of pride at that. It felt good to be playing the harp again. He still felt rusty at it, as it had been quite awhile, but it nonetheless felt  _right_. It felt like he was getting some of his old self back.  
  
They opted to go out to eat, though Sören still needed some time to wake up. Around five, they headed out to Serrano, but Sören wanted to stop at the cabin first.  
  
"I need to pick up something," Sören explained.  
  
He did that, and they headed on, driving in the rain. There weren't many people at the restaurant on a day like this, which was just as well, and it ensured fast service. Sören, as usual, wanted the hottest salsa they had available, and it still wasn't as hot as he would like it.  
  
"I normally don't mind rain but I hope it lets up soon so we're not stuck in the rain when we're looking at houses," Sören said, "and I don't want it to rain for my sister's wedding." Sören snickered. "Rain is the worst thing for all the makeup people will be wearing."  
  
"God." Maglor laughed. "I'm almost afraid."  
  
"Same here," Dooku said.  
  
"Please tell me you, of all people, are not going to be wearing something ridiculous for the 80s theme."  
  
"I'm wearing a suit and tie," Dooku said. "I can invoke Robert Palmer and get away with it."  
  
Sören howled and clapped. "You need to do Robert Palmer for karaoke."  
  
"I do not."  
  
"Yes.  _You do._ "  
  
Dooku glared. Sören glared back, then he made the puppy dog face.  
  
"Oh goddammit, Sören." Dooku shoved a salsa-loaded tortilla chip in Sören's mouth.  
  
Maglor couldn't resist. "He's simply irresistible."  
  
Dooku kicked Maglor under the table. "You know..."  
  
Sören chimed in with, "You might as well face it, you're addicted to love."  
  
"I am so done."  
  
Sören grinned. "Hi so done -"  
  
Dooku facepalmed. Then, shaking with laughter, he said to Maglor, "You gave us the speech about what it would mean to be with you... but I think you're the one who needs to be cautioned about..." He gestured to Sören. "This."  
  
"This what?" Sören made an innocent face, then he crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip.  
  
Maglor growled. He spoke into Sören's mind.  _You make me want to take you on the table when you do that, Sören._  
  
"I didn't mean to turn you on," Sören said.  
  
Dooku's murder face made Maglor laugh out loud. Dooku laughed too, rolling his eyes.  
  
"Stop with the Robert Palmer songs," Dooku said, shaking his finger at Sören, who kissed it.  
  
"Oh, mercy mercy me..."  
  
"I am going to take you over my knee."  
  
"Hi going to take you over my knee -"  
  
Maglor reached across the table and patted Dooku. "Sören's a brat, but he's our brat."  
  
"He is." Dooku glared at Sören, and then smiled. Sören kissed the tip of his nose. "He seems to really enjoy getting a rise out of me that much more, though. He acts sometimes like I'm his brother."  
  
Sören stuck his tongue out at Dooku, as if to prove his point.  
  
Then he turned to Maglor and said, "I do need to make up for some lost time here, so..." Sören reached below the table, presumably into his pocket. "The thing I got from the cabin." He pulled out what looked like a sock, but the dimensions suggested it fit somewhere other than a foot. Dooku cringed and groaned at the sight of it. "I give you your freedom, house Elf."  
  
Maglor kicked Sören under the table. "You're not just a brat, you are the worst brat."  
  
"It gets even worse," Dooku said. "That's a Willy Warmer."  
  
"That's not just  _a_  Willy Warmer, that's  _the_  Willy Warmer that I proposed to Nico with." Sören grinned. "I didn't have a ring."  
  
"You..." Maglor wheezed. "You... proposed to him... with that..."  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
"He did," Dooku said, "and I accepted."  
  
Sören cleared his throat, and then he climbed out from his chair and got down on his knees beside Maglor. "We know you can't get married to us legally, because polygamy, but when Nico and I have our first wedding anniversary in September... we could renew our vows, and include you. So we'd be married in spirit, the three of us."  
  
Maglor took Sören's hands and kissed them, tears coming to his eyes.  _My ridiculous, magnificent boy._  "Yes." He drew Sören up for a hug, holding him tight, rocking him. "A thousand times yes."  
  
Sören sat back down. He and Maglor worked on the remaining basket of tortilla chips and salsa together. "Did you eventually get a proper engagement ring?" Maglor was curious.  
  
"No," Sören said. "We have wedding rings - " He flashed the white gold band on his left hand. "But we didn't have engagement rings. I thought about it, but everyone wants white diamonds, and..." Sören looked at Dooku, stroked his face, adoration in his eyes. "That seemed so  _ordinary_  for the man I love. My taste is too expensive, I guess, because..." Sören took Dooku's hand and kissed it. "I would have wanted blue diamonds for you, Nico. You are my blue diamond."  
  
Maglor almost choked.  
  
He broke out into gooseflesh, feeling like a lightning bolt had hit his spine. His eyes teared up, and it wasn't from the salsa. There was a deafening roar in his head.  
  
"Are you all right?" Dooku asked, looking concerned.  
  
Maglor nodded. "Yeah, will you excuse me? I'm gonna run to the restroom, splash some cold water on my face. Too much fire."  _Too much_  fire.  
  
Inside the restroom, his hands shook as he turned on the faucet. He leaned over the sink and looked into the mirror, breathing hard.  
  
He remembered what Vanimórë had said just a few days prior, the words ringing out.  _Macalaurë, why dost thou not see what is so plainly in front of thee?_  
  
It was as if someone had turned on a light switch in his head, and it was all too clear now. Sören's words to Dooku just now...  _My blue diamond._  
  
Maglor shuddered.  _It's not simply that they're_  like  _Fëanor and Fingolfin. They_  are  _Fëanor and Fingolfin._  
  
It didn't seem possible, for an Elf to be reborn as a mortal. But it had been right there in front of him all along, screaming, and he had been so utterly lost in his lack of hope, the despair of the Doom, that he had been pushing away all the clues, all the coincidences that weren't coincidences really, not wanting to see it, let alone believe it. Not even when he'd seen Sören's painting at the studio, "The Once and Future King", with Dooku at the Dimmuborgir, winter sunset, fur-lined cape blowing in the wind, looking regal, bearing Fingolfin's own shield.  
  
It couldn't be unseen, now. They were here.  
  
He started to cry. Vanimórë's words again.  _And I tell thee that though the curse of gods lie upon thee from one universe to another, Age upon Age, that nothing is ended. There are powers that are stronger than the Doom._  
  
  
_  
  
Dooku drove them back; Maglor was too shaken to drive, though he wouldn't admit to it.  
  
Dooku took a detour to the Goðafoss. It was still raining, but it made for a nice drive in the rain. Maglor sat in the back seat with Sören snuggled up on him, stroking his curls. Sören looked half-asleep, the long lashes framing his cheeks, full lips slightly parted.  
  
_Gods, thou art beautiful, Sören._  His father and uncle were exquisite as Elves, and had been reborn into the two most delicious human Men he'd ever seen.  He couldn't get enough of them then, and he couldn't get enough of them now.  
  
He thought about telling them, but something in him cautioned to wait. Even if that voice inside him hadn't, he didn't even know what he would or could say. Unlike being an Elf, he had no actual proof. And he was still stunned, beyond words.  
  
Depeche Mode played softly in the background.  
  
_Vows are spoken  
To be broken  
Feelings are intense  
Words are trivial  
Pleasures remain  
So does the pain  
Words are meaningless  
And forgettable  
  
All I ever wanted  
All I ever needed  
Is here in my arms_  
  
Sören stirred when they got to the falls. He got out of the car, even though it was raining, and splashed around in puddles like a big kid. Laughing. Radiant. He had been through so much, and still found great joy in the smallest things.  _My father, reincarnated as a millennial._  It had been that same fire in Fëanor, the clean, burning light of his spirit, the lust for life, living out loud, living so fully, the refusal to  _break_. It had driven Melkor to obsession, wanting to break him.  
  
Sören got back in the car, now wet, and shook his curls on Maglor like Auli had shaken his fur at them earlier.  
  
"Brat."  
  
"I love you too." Sören kissed his nose.  
  
The three of them curled up together watching  _Metalocalypse_  when they got back. The weekend had gone by too fast.  
  
_The rest of their lives will go by too fast. I will have to watch them die, all over again._  Maglor tried not to cry. He wondered if this was part of the Doom - for the Valar to play with him by holding out that glimmer of hope, just to snatch it away again.  
  
He had sworn to Sören that he wouldn't run, and, as much as it  _would_  hurt to lose them all over again, in the end, they were here with him now. And he  _hungered_.  
  
He grabbed Sören's curls, kissed him roughly, and then he kissed Dooku, hard and deep. Guided their hands to his hardness.  
  
They quickly undressed, and re-assembled back on the bed. Sensing his need, Sören and Dooku pinned him down and kissed and licked him all over, making him writhe, making him beg for release, but something in the way he begged brought out the mischief in both of them, and Maglor watched as Sören found a scarf and tied his wrists to the bed.  
  
"Tell me to stop and I will," Sören said.  
  
Maglor thrust up against him, desperate. "I  _need._ "  
  
Sören took him, with Dooku taking Sören from behind. He watched them kiss, taking each other's hands. It was like watching Fëanor and Fingolfin all over again.  
  
"Oh, you feel good." Sören shuddered. "Both of you. So good."  
  
Dooku kissed and licked Sören's neck, nibbled, and then he seized a fistful of Sören's curls. "Fuck him the way I'm fucking you."  
  
Sören did, speeding up a little. Soon he was pounding Maglor into the mattress, as Dooku drove into Sören with abandon. Sören leaned in to kiss Maglor again and again, leaned down to kiss his neck, his nipples, reached to play with his cock. Maglor heard himself moaning, crying out, hips rocking against Sören's, completely lost in pleasure, in desire. Being bound like this, being  _his_ , made it even more intense, fully surrendering.  _Yes, I belong to thee. I was made for thee._  
  
"That's it," Sören husked, between kisses at his neck. "Sing for us, love."  
  
" _Ada._ " It slipped out. He was glad Sören didn't understand Elvish.  
  
"Mmmmm." Sören claimed his mouth, kissing him deep. "My singer. My Song. The song of my soul..."  
  
"Ada..." Maglor arched to kiss him again, rocking against him harder. "Ada, Ada..."  
  
Sören was fucking him hard now - Maglor had almost forgotten what a beast Sören could be when he topped, and he loved it. He needed this. The Prince Albert piercing in Sören's cock rubbed him just the right way, and he was right there right there  _right there_  but he never wanted this to end...  
  
"That's it. Give in to this, you need this..." Sören kissed along his jaw. "You deserve this, our love, we love you so much..."  
  
"Oh gods..." He was ready to explode. He closed his eyes, the light in the room too bright, almost like Sören himself was glowing, or making his own glow more intense. "Hells..."  
  
"Come for us."  
  
Maglor let out a wordless scream that ripped through him, coming so hard it almost hurt, his orgasm intensified as he watched Sören painted with his seed, the look of  _satisfaction_  on Sören's face at it, followed by the look of awe, wonder, ecstasy, the brilliance in his eyes, pupils blown as Sören started spending into him.  
  
"Oh,  _fuck_..." Sören cried out, collapsing onto him, shuddering. "Macalaurë, Nico, I love you..."  
  
Dooku groaned, and was shaking now as well, with Sören letting out a contented "mmm", presumably at the feeling of Dooku coming inside him.  
  
Maglor felt another throbbing pulse of his orgasm, and held back the cry of  _Fëanor!_  
  
At some point Sören untied him, and Maglor lay there between them, feeling like he was melting. It had just been the one round, the one climax, but it was so shattering it felt like he had come ten times. He was starting to drift off.  
  
But before sleep could claim him, one last thought washed over his consciousness.  
  
_I have to talk to Vanimórë about this._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Willy Warmer proposal that Sören and Dooku are referring to happens in the last chapter of _[Don't Threaten Me With A Good Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787306/chapters/37826252)_ (the story of how Sören and Dooku meet and fall in love in London).


	36. To Catch A Falling Star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally going to include an important scene with Sören, Maglor and Van in this chapter, but this chapter got long enough on its own without it, so what's happening is that scene will be next chapter and that bumps everything back a bit (the wedding in Reykjavik will be chapter 39 instead of chapter 38, and the pre-wedding party chapter 38 instead of chapter 37). It happens. #WriterProblems
> 
> Also: the conversation where Claire James is originally mentioned to this universe's Maglor happens in Spiced_Wine's [Outlier of the Storm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18617704), which is why he knows to ask about her in this chapter.

**To Catch A Falling Star**

 

 _Monday_  
  
  
A few minutes before the alarm went off, Maglor woke up. One side of the bed was empty - he heard Dooku moving around in the kitchen, listening to classical music. Sören was tangled in his arms, and Maglor's breath caught looking at him. He already had loved Sören beyond words without knowing who he truly was, but now...  
  
_And even with all he has endured, he is still so clearly, brightly_  himself.  _The darkness of the world could not quench his fire._  He felt like a fool for not seeing it sooner.  
  
For all that it was a tragedy for Fëanor to be shoved from near-godhood into a frail, mortal incarnation, it was also a testament to how truly magnificent he was, that even in a mortal form, he was this much himself. And though it was heartbreaking, his vulnerability made him all the more lovable this time around. He had often thought of his father as being like a large, predatory cat, and had once - before he knew what Sören was  _or rather, knew somehow all along and just refused to see it_  - thought that Sören was like him but as a soft, fuzzy, playful, adorable kitten. He didn't think, once upon a time, he could love his father any more than he did, but now... he did. Very much. If the Valar had sought to make Fëanor no longer desirable to his son, to make him fall out of love... they had failed miserably. Maglor's arms tightened around Sören, never wanting to let go.  
  
Sören's eyes fluttered open. He blinked and then he squinted at the light, whining a little as he buried his face in Maglor's shoulder. "Dun wanna waaaake uuuuup."  
  
Maglor laughed and patted him. "I know."  
  
"Nuuuuuuu. I haaaaate mornings..."  
  
Maglor pressed a kiss to Sören's forehead and rocked him a little. "We have to get up, though, and go to the studio for our classes."  
  
"Fuuuuuuck." Sören made a whining sound. He picked his head up from Maglor's shoulder and pouted. "I wish we could stay in bed all day."  
  
Maglor stroked Sören's face. "I wish we could too."  _I could stay in bed with thee for an eternity._  He sighed.  
  
Snúdur hopped up on the bed, and walked over to Sören, tail high in the air in greeting. He gave Sören a headbutt and flomped onto him, kneading loudly, purring. Sören rubbed his nose in the cat's fur and began skritching him, talking baby talk in Icelandic. Across their bond, Maglor could feel the intensity of love Sören had for the cat, and that was just a cat. He loved so  _much_ , so deeply.  
  
Maglor pet Sören's curls with his bad hand. "Have I told you lately how precious you are to me?"  
  
Sören took Maglor's hand and kissed it, love shining in his dark eyes. "I never get tired of hearing it." He put his head against Maglor's hand, bowing his head and closing his eyes almost reverently. "You're precious to me too."  
  
Overcome with emotion, Maglor took Sören's face in his hands and kissed him hard and hungrily; the moan Sören made into the kiss, thrusting up against him, made Maglor's cock stir. He glanced at the clock again and reluctantly broke the kiss.  
  
"We had better start getting ready or we'll never leave this bed." He patted Sören, and quickly climbed out of the bed, cursing under his breath.  
  
They got washed up and changed, and met Dooku in the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. Maglor put his arms around the seated Dooku and kissed the top of his head, before taking a seat. Dooku reached for his hand under the table and squeezed. That did nothing to calm Maglor's libido, and he glowered into his coffee.  
  
"You look like how I feel," Sören said, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth.  
  
"Do we have an agenda for this evening?" Dooku asked, sipping his coffee. "Here? The cabin?"  
  
"We might as well just leave the cat and dog here since they're here," Sören said. "I can bring back more cat food from the cabin. And we should get a jump on looking at places." He looked at Maglor. "After classes?"  
  
Maglor leaned back in his chair and figured out how to word this without causing suspicion or alarm. "I have something I need to take care of after classes so I'll drop you off here, and then I'll be back in the early evening. But tomorrow, immediately after classes, we can go scouting for places in town -" He looked at Dooku.  
  
"I think I'll come along once you've narrowed down the selection. I'm at a place in the novel I'm working on where I have a certain momentum built up and I've already got... enough distractions." Dooku's eyes twinkled. "So I trust you two to look on your own and not pick out anything horrible, and I can assist with the final decision."  
  
"All right." Maglor looked at Sören, who nodded.  
  
"So, what are your plans for the day?" Sören asked, when breakfast was finished and he collected the dishes, planting a kiss on Dooku's forehead.  
  
"Writing, laundry, and I'll hit the gym for a bit."  
  
"Mmmmm," Sören said; he crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip.   
  
The thought of Dooku at the gym, getting all sweaty, and Sören doing  _that thing_  with his face was making it worse; Maglor felt ready to climb the walls. He  _really_  did not want to deal with Vanimórë later if he was still like this, feeling like he was in heat, but he needed to talk to him as soon as possible - if he didn't have his guitar classes he'd be meeting with Vanimórë right now.  
  
Maglor made a thermos of iced coffee for Sören, who gave him a little kiss once he took the thermos in the car, and just a sweet, innocent little peck made the ache even stronger. It took him every ounce of his restraint to not pull over, drag Sören out of the car, and take him in the grass.  
  
Sören had his window rolled down, curls stirring in the breeze. He was watching the landscape with a look of longing in his eyes, and Maglor knew exactly what he was thinking -  _I better take it all in while I can._  Five to seven years could fly by for a mortal, as well. Maglor sighed, wishing he didn't have to force Sören away from his home.  
  
Sören finally turned back to Maglor and said, "So, uh, feel free to tell me if this is none of my business, but what are you doing after classes where I can't come with you?" He raised an eyebrow.  
  
Maglor decided to be honest - to a point. "I need to have a talk with Vanimórë."  
  
"I see." Sören nodded. His gaze challenged Maglor's. "Are you finally gonna apologize for being a dick to him?" He sipped his coffee.  
  
Maglor's jaw set and he bristled. "Sören..."  
  
"Look." Sören glared. "I'm not saying you guys have to be best friends and sit around a bonfire singing Kumbaya -"  
  
_Thou wouldst be that bonfire, Fëanor._  
  
" - but is it really necessary to be like, you know..." Sören gestured. "This."  
  
"Sören, you weren't there. You don't know -"  
  
"This is what I know. He gave you back your will to survive, and eventually, after a long time alone, in pain, things did finally get better, at least a little, I hope? You found me and Nico. You can have some happiness with us at least for awhile. And Van? He told me to go to London, in 2015, and he confirmed when we were together last week that he told me to go there  _for a reason_ , that reason being so I could find Nico. And my best friend Frankie, too - did you know she's distantly related to me? And to you, apparently, she's one of your descendants too."  
  
"Hm."  
  
Sören nodded. "Dag was doing research on our family tree and found her Icelandic great-great grandfather. Anyway, I don't think Van sent me to London just to help me, but he knew your path was going to cross with ours, eventually, that you needed both me and Nico in your life."  
  
"What else did he tell you?" Maglor was certain that Sören had not been told who he really was, but he was curious if any hints had been dropped.  
  
"He has at least one of my paintings in his flat in Chelsea and he, well... he looks exactly like how I painted him. So he gave me a talk about how I can see things and need to trust that more than I do." Sören's eyes narrowed. "You know what I see, right now? You're related to him, aren't you? You hate him not just because he saved your life, but he reminded you of the family you lost -"  
  
" _Enough._ "  
  
Sören smiled, like a hungry wolf. "I'm just saying, Maglor. What would your father say if he was here right now? Do you think he'd approve of you treating Van like shit, when Van has been trying to look out for you?"  
  
"Do. Not. Do  _not_."  
  
They did not speak a single word to each other for the rest of the trip to the studio. Sören  _slammed_  the door to the Jaguar when he got out, his face murderous.  
  
That didn't help Maglor's libido at all. He thought about Sören's nails and teeth in him, the very, very few times he and Sören had argued, years back, and had makeup sex.  
  
Maglor got through his first guitar class - just a month had transformed his students into competent musicians, and he was proud of them. Despite his initial reluctance to teach the class at all, he melted a little with happiness when he told the class he'd be staying on as a permanent instructor at least the next few years, and his students applauded and cheered.  
  
The class put him in somewhat better spirits when it was time for the break between classes. Sören was listening to angry rap music, furiously cleaning the art room. Maglor paused outside the door.  
  
"Hey," he said, finally.  
  
Sören whirled around and glowered.  
  
"I came to make peace," Maglor said. "Let's go into town and I'll buy you lunch, OK?"  
  
They didn't talk on the way there, and didn't talk until Sören was halfway finished with his sandwich. Finally Sören broke the silence. "I suppose this is a bit personal for me," he said.  
  
Maglor waited.  
  
Sören went on. "Yes, I love Van - not like I love you, but there's still feelings there, and whenever I love anyone, even just a little... well, the saying 'go big or go home' applies here. It's always intense."  
  
Yes, Sören was so Fëanor it  _hurt._  
  
"So when I love someone, anyone, I feel a bit protective of them. I don't know what all Van has been through, but he told me..." His voice lowered. "He's a half-Elf, Sauron's son. You knew that, right?"  
  
"I did."  
  
Sören nodded. "I can only imagine that he's been... abused. And it's why he gives so much of a damn, with the charitable work his company does, and whatnot. It's something I can relate to, having been abused myself."  
  
Once again, Maglor's blood stirred, the white-hot fury that Sören had been abused at all, by anyone - the horror he'd lived through at the hands of his aunt and uncle, and bullied by his peers in school in the 1980s and 1990s, then what he'd experienced with Justin. It all would have been bad enough if Sören was just mortal, but knowing that his beloved  _father_  had been through all of this...  
  
_...the Valar are punishing him._  
  
Maglor wanted to scream. He wanted to burn things to the ground.  
  
"So that part of me that has been abused, when I sense that someone else has been through it, I feel for them, and I feel for Van in particular. I want good things for him," Sören said. "It bothers me that you hate him. And it hits a little too close to home because... Margrét tried to kill herself in 2007. I found her and did CPR and called the paramedics. Broke her sternum and ribs doing CPR too, it's never as fucking clean as it looks in the movies and on TV. Anyway, she was  _pissed_  at me for a loooonnng time, not for breaking her bones, but for saving her life, period. Even though she got her diagnosis and started transitioning from male to female, and things got better for her, it still took her over a year to completely stop being angry with me for saving her life, and I was living with her and bearing the brunt of her attitude and it was really tense. Like god forbid I give a shit about my own blood and don't want to see you dead, Margrét, and especially don't want to see you fucking go out like  _that_ , committing suicide because of people's shitty transphobia, wanting to hurt you and see you break. But as much as I didn't understand it at the time, she explained years later, when she was thinking rationally again, that she'd felt like all her hope was gone and there was no more point to living, so being forced to keep living made her angry, and it wasn't until she started to get her hope back and feel OK with life again that she stopped being angry. I know it's not quite the same situation for you because you're not trans and the mortal lifespan is much shorter, she hasn't lived with the buildup of hopelessness and despair that you've had for thousands of years, but... it still reminds me a lot of the situation and how much it hurt when things were tense and weird with me and my sister."  
  
Maglor sighed.  
  
"You know what's really strange?" Sören raised an eyebrow. "She looks like a female version of you, the more I think about it. I know we're descendants of yours via your son, but she looks like a close relative..."  
  
"Yes, that is strange." Maglor thought of his aunt Findis, his harp teacher, and Margrét's musical inclinations; he thought of the painting Sören had done of his best friend Frankie, looking like his aunt Írimë the shieldmaiden, and the way Frankie had threatened him, and the legend of how she'd beaten up Justin Roberts. He could feel the wheels spinning in his head, the beginning of making a connection.  
  
"Anyway," Sören said, "like I said earlier, I don't expect you and Van to be the best of friends, but if you can't bring yourself to stop being angry with him, please at least consider that  _for me_ , it's awkward if my partners don't get along. It makes me feel like I'm trapped in the middle, it makes me feel torn... I don't like that."  
  
Maglor looked away. Sören compelled his gaze... and then he made the sad puppy dog face.  
  
"Sören." Maglor took a deep breath. "My history with Vanimórë is a little more complex than the very condensed version of events that you know about. I can promise you I won't make a scene at the wedding, if you're worried about that, but as far as anything else... a lot of how I proceed from here is going to depend on how my discussion with Vanimórë goes."  
  
"You better not be asking him to not see me anymore."  
  
Maglor cringed; he'd already asked that and of course Vanimórë had refused. "He and I are discussing something else."  
  
"Something I can't know about."  
  
"Not until I know more about the situation and how best to proceed. I'm sorry that's so cryptic." Every nerve in Maglor's body was shrieking to tell Sören who and what he was, but there was also a strong voice of caution, to  _wait_ , because this was a delicate procedure and could go very badly.  
  
Sören pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaled sharply, and nodded.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Maglor did not call Vanimórë ahead of time. He felt for where Vanimórë was, and drove there, after he dropped Sören off.  
  
Vanimórë was at the bay. Nobody else was around; he saw Maglor approaching but did not acknowledge him until Maglor was a meter away. They spoke in Elvish.  
  
"Thou hast not come to pay a mere social call," Vanimórë said.  
  
"No." Maglor folded his arms. "Thou knowest that Sören is Fëanor and Nicolae is Fingolfin."  
  
"Thou hast finally seen it. It took thee long enough, Macalaurë."  
  
"How was I supposed to see it? Elves do not habitually reincarnate as Men, do they?"   
  
"They do not... unless they bear a drop of Elven blood, as Sören and Dooku both possess. And if they hath offended the Valar. As thine entire family hath done."  
  
"Hast the entire family been...?"  
  
"No. Just some."  
  
"Margrét is Findis and Frankie is Írimë...?"  
  
"And Dagnýr is Finrod."  
  
"Cousin  _Finrod?_  What in the Hells...  _the Valar pardoned him_."  
  
"They did, and then sometime later they cast him out, because he refused to accept what the Valar had done to his family when he had committed the same 'crimes'."  
  
Maglor buried his face in his hands and made a noise of grief. Finrod, who had always been kind to him, had been renowned as the most noble and legendary of the House of Finwë... even he was damned.  
  
It seemed strange for Fëanor and Finrod to have such a close, supportive, loving relationship this time around. Sensing Maglor's bemusement, Vanimórë nodded. "Yes, he gets to be the twin brother of the same uncle he bitterly opposed - on some subconscious level he feels guilty, knowing Fëanor was right, and now he is his brother's keeper."  
  
Maglor sat down, shaking. Vanimórë sat beside him. Maglor thought to ask if there was anyone else, but he couldn't handle it right now, and there were other points that needed to be discussed. He could revisit who else was here, if anyone, at another time.  
  
Maglor took a deep breath. "Sören said thou didst tell him to go to London, in 2015, that thou didst know he would find Nicolae there. But my path crossed with Sören's first, by chance, as if we were fated to find each other again. Fated to find each other and be ripped apart from each other, one way or the other, it seems... part of the damnation... but fated nonetheless."  
  
Vanimórë waited for him to go on.  
  
"Thou hast spoken to me of other universes. Where I am with this Claire James.. is there a Sören, and what hath become of him, if so? And in this universe, here, what hath become of Claire James? Will I meet her, someday?"  
  
"Claire committed suicide, in this universe. As far as the two universes where thou art with Claire... thou and Sören never met there, he was murdered by Justin Roberts, his body dumped into the Thames."  
  
Maglor broke. He let out a sob, and wept, doubled over. When he had slain Justin, it randomly occurred to him to put the body in the river, where it could be found and send a message. He had not known, then, that he was doing to Justin precisely what Justin had done to Sören in at least two other realities. It was poetic justice, of a sense.  
  
And it seemed the Valar thought they had gotten poetic justice, as well. Fëanor, at last broken, his flame quenched forever in a body of water. They were smug snakes, thinking they were so clever. Maglor's cries ripped through him, wracked him, almost screaming in his pain. It felt like his entire world was shattering, like his very soul was shattering.  
  
Vanimórë put an arm around him, and Maglor did not refuse, nor did he refuse when Vanimórë pulled him towards him, for Maglor to cry on his shoulder.  
  
"I know, beauty."  
  
Maglor wept and wept. He could not unsee it - his beautiful Sören, mutilated, floating lifeless... "Ada. My Ada..."  
  
Vanimórë rocked him, stroked his hair. Maglor still did not refuse the touch.  
  
Maglor felt like he couldn't breathe. He felt like he was going to be sick. He was starting to  _keen_. At last he seized Vanimórë's shoulders, feeling the wild desperation on his face, aware he looked like he had gone mad. "He is going to die again. Not the same way, but he is  _mortal_. He is a Man now. He will die, somehow, someday. We hath been reunited just for me to watch him die all over again. He and Nicolae both."  
  
"That is why I am here."  
  
"Is he going to die  _now?_  Didst thou take me here to find closure with him before...?" Maglor couldn't finish the sentence. He thought of Sören's mother's and father's graves in Akureyri - at thirty-four, Sören was older now than they were when they died, but... Another sob choked out of him. "Thou... thou dost speak of a place called the Timeless Halls. Canst thou send his soul there, away from the Void...?"  
  
"I can do something else entirely." Vanimórë took Maglor's hands. "I can give him back what was taken from him."  
  
" _What._ "  
  
"When I met Claire... I told thee she was quite ill, on the verge of death. I saved her life. I gave her  _eternal_  life. My blood is power, Macalaurë."  
  
Maglor thought of the pain he'd seen in Sören's eyes when he told him what he could expect over the coming decades, with having to move, limit his contact with his family, understand all other attachments would not be permanent. Sören had agreed, but of course he would say that before a taste of that life, and he worried that Sören would still come to resent him in ten years. To bind Sören to that life for thousands of years as he had been bound... to watch Sören turn from the seductively innocent, happy-go-lucky laughing free spirit who gave him life, to something bitter and burned out...  
  
"I will not allow it."  
  
" _It is not for thee to allow._  It is  _his_  life, and  _his_  decision. It is Dooku's decision as well, as I will make the same offer to him. And the alternative is that yes, thou wilt watch Sören and Dooku both die... thou wilt watch Fëanor and Fingolfin die all over again. Dost thou  _truly_  want that? Thou hast been miserable wandering all this time because  _thou hast been alone_. Thou wilt never be alone again,  _if_  they accept the offer I intend to give them."  
  
"They do not even know that they were immortal Elves once upon a time, to begin with. I did not tell them, when I learned of it. I thought to speak with thee first, about how to proceed."  
  
"Carefully." Vanimórë nodded. "It would be better if Sören were shown, rather than told. He can find ways to rationalize away something he is told, he can mistrust something he is told, since thou hast lied to him before..."  
  
Maglor wanted to backhand him for bringing that up again, but he restrained himself, knowing Vanimórë was right, and he  _hated_  that Vanimórë was right,  _hated_  that he had lied to Sören years ago about why he was leaving. Then he realized it was no small irony that he had told Sören he was leaving because of an arranged marriage he couldn't get out of, and he had refused Fëanor, after years of willingly, passionately laying with him, to marry a woman he did not love because of the Laws. Fëanor died before he could make things right. Sören might not consciously know who and what he was, right now, but Maglor couldn't help but feel that on a subconscious level he sensed the ancient grief of rejection and it contributed to his breakdown in 2014-2015 and again in 2018.  
  
He was going to have to answer for that, when Sören learned the truth of what he was.  
  
"Shown?" Maglor was genuinely confused. "Art thou bringing him to one of the Portals...?"  
  
"No."  _Not yet._  "Someone else is going to show him what he is."  
  
"Someone..."  
  
"Olórin."  
  
Maglor's jaw dropped. He knew that Olórin was still around, of course, though he had not seen him since... before World War II, at least. "Olórin is a Maia. He serves the Valar -"  
  
"He does not serve them anymore. He saw what was done to thy family. He would not stand for it. He sent the soul of Aragorn here to support thy kin and counteract some of the damage, which was the best he could do."  
  
"My foster son's foster son." Maglor's eyes widened. " _Ari._ " Olórin had gently teased him about using the alias Mark Lowry, last he saw him, calling it "unimaginative". But Olórin had then left him a very large clue, which he should have picked up on ten years ago, and of course did not. A little bonus because the name Ari meant "eagle" in Icelandic and the King of the Eagles had carried the body of Fingolfin to be buried after he was slain. _Well played._  "That is how Ari knew..."  
  
"...since he first met thee. He is a practicing witch, so he does not share the ways this lot gets in their own way about so-called 'psychic' gifts." Vanimórë's lips quirked into a small smile. "I went to Reykjavik a few times after moving out of the rental to visit Ari and drink with him, so we can lament being surrounded by thou fools not seeing what is in front of thee."  
  
"Why did he not tell Sören? Thou dost say it would be better for him to be shown than to be told by me, after the way I lied to him, and I accept that. But his own cousin...?"  
  
Vanimórë put his hand on Maglor's shoulder and his mind reached into Maglor's mind, then. Maglor saw a reality where Ari was at an ashram, doing a past life regression, and he not only saw his own past incarnation as Aragorn, but he saw Fëanor in all of his glory with the Silmarils, and saw the fire burning in Sören's aura. Trying to tell Sören some time later that he was the reincarnation of Fëanor, and Sören not only didn't believe it, but thought Ari was making a fool of him, and he broke off contact with his cousin, and then with his brother and sister as well, when they tried to get them to reconcile. Sören went to London of his own accord, wanting to get out of Iceland altogether, and Maglor saw Sören meeting Justin Roberts. Saw Sören abused,  _broken_ , mute at the end, locked in a room and starved, and at last, Justin's knife flaying Sören alive, Sören's heart stopping in the shock -  
  
The vision broke, with Maglor falling apart into sobs again.  
  
Vanimórë patted him. "That was one of the realities where thou art with Claire James, and Sören died. For what it is worth, in this reality Ari did consult his cards about telling him who thou art, and pulled the Ten of Swords; he received a small taste of what I showed thee, just now. It was enough. I do not fault him for keeping his silence. Thou might have never had a second chance with him otherwise."  
  
Maglor kept weeping. He rolled onto his side, laying on the ground in grief and anguish, almost screaming in the raw pain he was in. He knew that it was likely someone could hear him in the distance and he was creating enough of a scene to alarm someone enough to bring one of Akureyri's five police officers out to see what was going on, and he probably needed to get a hold of himself but it  _hurt._  "It hurts too much."  
  
"I know, beauty. It hurts me too."  
  
Vanimórë pulled Maglor back into a sitting position, this time with Maglor's back against his chest, his arms around him. "Sören and Dooku will know everything before the week is over. There is even more to this story where the Valar are concerned, and it is quite bad, but thou hast seen enough for now. Thou shouldst go home to thy father and uncle, before it gets much later."  
  
Vanimórë held him a few moments longer, and then he took Maglor's hands and pulled him to his feet. They stood there for a minute looking at each other and then Vanimórë kissed him. "It will be all right, Macalaurë."  
  
"I am not sure that condemning Sören and Nicolae to twenty thousand years of  _this_  is all right."  
  
"Wouldst thou tire of them?" Vanimórë raised an eyebrow.  
  
And Maglor remembered this morning, holding Sören in his arms...  
  
_"I wish we could stay in bed all day."  
  
"I wish we could too." Thinking, unspoken, I could stay in bed with thee for an eternity._  
  
He remembered Vanimórë's words, close to a month ago, when they had argued about Vanimórë dating Sören...  
  
_"Thou didst refuse thy father; the prohibition against incest was too great. And thou didst spend thy life after regretting it. Fingolfin, thou and he did find some comfort in one another, conjuring the face, the body, of he who was gone—"  
  
"Enough! ...Enough."  
  
"It could never be enough, Maglor, the three of thee."_  
  
Maglor shuddered, thinking about having all the time in the world to make up for all the lost time with Fëanor and Fingolfin...  
  
Vanimórë sensed the frisson down Maglor's spine and kissed him again. "Go home."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Dooku was out when Sören got back from his classes, presumably at the gym. Sören felt antsy, a lot of energy built up that needed a release somehow, but he wasn't yet ready to resume work on his painting, and his mind couldn't quite settle on another project. He played Stardew Valley, with the cat and dog curled up on either side of him, and as he harvested his crops his gaze kept straying across the room to where Maglor's harp stood, and nearby lay Dooku's rapier and Maglor's sword, both sheathed. Sören still couldn't believe Maglor's harp was from the Fourth Age and his sword was from the First Age, the sword made by Fëanor himself. It seemed unreal that objects could be that well-preserved for that long, though even from a distance Sören could tell the craftsmanship was very fine.  
  
His curiosity finally got the better of him, and he put his laptop down, got up from the couch, and wandered across the room. He ran his fingers over the ornate scrollwork across the top of Maglor's harp, admiring the detail of leaves and flowers. He remembered the day he looked up Maglor on the Internet.  
  
_Maglor is a Sindarin rendering of his Quenya mother name Makalaurë (or Macalaurë), which means "Gold-cleaver" — alluding to his skill with the harp, and possibly the power of his voice._  
  
In his mind's eye Sören saw Maglor playing in a garden, watched the flowers open to his harp, his voice, golden roses, golden light streaming from the roses. Silver-blue eyes watching him intently - eyes like blue diamonds - and then as suddenly as the vision came on, it went away.  
  
_Interesting._  Sören wondered about it, not entirely sure what to make of it.  
  
He knelt before the sheathed swords, and, without thinking about it, just feeling, he pulled Maglor's sword out of his sheath. It seemed almost too heavy to hold, for an instant, and then it lightened, and warmed in his hands. Sören stared into the jewel set in the flaming star on the hilt - a jewel that he had never seen before, like an opal but with many more colors, much more flash. He ran his fingers over it.  
  
Another vision came over him. This time he was standing in a forge, the heat overpowering. He was hammering the steel of a sword, seeing visions within the vision - the sword cutting down Orcs, and a being made of smoke and fire. Hammering, hammering, fury, frenzy,  _live, survive, defend your blood_  with each strike upon the anvil,  _willing_  it into the steel like an enchantment.  
  
The fire grew hotter, almost unbearable, as the litany became a roar, like a thousand voices as one voice, but wordless, and the vision broke.  
  
Sören was breathing hard, and he had broken into a sweat. He put the sword down, and then, quickly, back in its sheath. His hands were shaking, and for a split second it seemed like they were glowing.  
  
_What in the fuck._  
  
Sören wondered if he'd had a vision of Maglor's father, or if he'd had a vision of a past life of his own, working in a forge somewhere, perhaps in ancient Viking days when people believed in magic and made things like spellswords. It was very curious, very  _strange_.  
  
Sören was overheated enough that he made his way to the kitchen sink, turned on the tap, and began to splash cold water on his face. He went to the freezer and stuck his face in. A cold beer sounded nice right about now, but as he rested against the fridge for a moment, before he could open the door, he realized he was  _horny_.  
  
He wasn't a stranger to sudden, random attacks of horniness - in his late teens and early twenties he'd been prone to masturbating six or seven times a day even if he was also having sex with a partner. Even in recent times, he'd get himself worked up fantasizing about Dooku, fantasizing about Maglor. He liked sex; he liked  _a lot_ of sex. But this was more than just simple fantasizing or vague longings - he felt like he needed to fuck something or be fucked  _right now_  or he was going to die. Just jerking off wasn't going to do it, he needed the real thing. He took deep breaths, but his cock was throbbing urgently, balls aching, nipples hard and twinging, gooseflesh over his arms and the back of his neck, his entire body screaming with frustration that Dooku and Maglor weren't there.  
  
As if on cue, Sören heard a vehicle pull in front of the cottage. He slammed the freezer door shut, and strode out to the living room. The door opened and Dooku walked in, wearing a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt, sweaty and flushed from his workout. He raised his hand in greeting and smiled when he saw Sören. "Hello -"  
  
He didn't get far. Sören slammed him against the wall with a growl, kissing him roughly, thrusting up against him, letting Dooku feel how hard he was. Dooku groaned into the kiss, and reached around, his hands on the small of Sören's back, then sliding down to cup Sören's ass.  
  
Sören nibbled on Dooku's neck with another growl, licked his neck, breathing in the scent of him, cock throbbing even harder. "I want you  _now_."  
  
Dooku laughed into the kiss. "My," he said.  
  
Sören started walking him towards the bedroom, their steps meshed, kissing all the way there. Dooku was hard now too, and that just drove Sören crazier. As soon as they stepped into the bedroom Sören  _ripped_  the fabric of Dooku's T-shirt, tearing the shredded shirt from him and dropping the ruined shirt to the floor. His hands ran over the damp, hairy chest, fingers brushing the nipples, and he reached down to the gym shorts, ripping those too. Dooku shivered, and Sören growled at the sight of the cock springing free, leaping as it stiffened further, starting to leak precum for him. Sören fumbled with his own shirt, not able to get it off fast enough; Dooku reached to undo Sören's belt and his jeans, taking the initiative of kissing him now, moaning as Sören's hands wandered over him.  
  
As soon as Sören was naked, he shoved Dooku onto the bed and climbed over him. Climbed onto him, hard cocks pressed together, grinding. Dooku smelled intoxicating, and Sören kissed him roughly, began kissing, nibbling, licking down his neck, down to his chest, breathing his scent, lapping and suckling hungrily at the nipples, licking the chest hair, licking down to the sculpted abdomen, kissing, sucking, biting. Burying his nose in Dooku's bush, licking that too, then wrapping his lips around the head of his cock, tongue sliding into the foreskin, his own cock throbbing hard at the sounds Dooku made. Sören stroked himself, took a few licks at the head of Dooku's cock, teasing the frenulum, and looked down at his own cock completely slick with precum, flushed and looking almost angry in its need. He kissed and licked his way back up, continuing to breathe in the scent, and he feasted on Dooku's nipples, tongue lashing furiously, sucking them hard, tugging them with his teeth, growling, as Dooku writhed, grabbed his curls, moaning loudly.   
  
When Dooku's noises were more frantic, almost sobbing as he bucked up against Sören, he started kissing Dooku's neck again, the head of his cock poised at Dooku's entrance. "I want you," Sören rasped between kisses, licks, bites. " _I want you_. I want you  _right fucking now_. Right. Fucking. Now. I need you so fucking bad."  
  
Dooku waved his hand and the bottle of lube floated over. He grasped the bottle and poured it over Sören's cock, Sören's hand. He moaned and arched as Sören stuck one finger inside him, then two, rubbing the prostate in circles. "Yes, love," Dooku panted.  
  
"Yes." Sören started pushing into him, and gasped as he plunged into the silken heat, felt his husband wrapped around him.  
  
"Yes." Dooku's hands seized Sören's hips, and squeezed. He pushed out, as Sören pushed in, breathless, and then their breath came back, both of them panting when Sören bottomed out.  
  
Sören hooked a leg onto his shoulder and began to thrust, not slow but not as hard as he could give it. Not yet. "Fuck, you feel good."  
  
"So do you." Dooku gasped and arched again, and Sören knew the Prince Albert ring in the head of his cock had found that sweet spot. "Oh god, Sören."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
" _Yes._ "  
  
Sören shuddered. The tight velvet of Dooku's channel had brought him already close to that edge, and with mischief glittering in his dark eyes, a small smile on his lips, Dooku began working his inner muscles around Sören's cock, clenching and unclenching, a silent challenge.  _Let's see how long you can last._  Sören made an inhuman noise, driving into him harder and faster. One hand cupped Dooku's cock, stroking, and the other played over Dooku's chest and stomach, Sören's eyes riveted on the firm, toned body, the silver pelt covering his chest, the silver hair adorning his arms and legs. Sören shuddered again. "God, you gorgeous  _fuck_  -"  
  
"Mmmmm." Dooku's hands slid up Sören's thighs, over his stomach and chest, and he began to play with Sören's nipple rings. There was heat in his gaze, his eyes liquid dark chocolate. Then he closed his eyes and let out a moan, shivering, as Sören went harder still, moaning with him as Dooku pinched and rubbed his nipples, tugged the rings. His eyes opened again and met Sören's, before raking down his body. "You're beautiful, darling."  
  
Sören leaned down and slowed down the pace, teasing, tormenting both of them, kissing him deep. Dooku's arms wrapped around Sören, one hand petting Sören's curls, as the fingers of the other played down Sören's spine.  
  
That was how Maglor found them, his keys dropping to the floor.  
  
Sören and Dooku looked over at him, and then Sören grinned and kissed Dooku again, continuing to thrust slowly, deliberately; both men groaned. Maglor started undressing, and joined them on the bed, naked.  
  
Sören felt Maglor get behind him, and he thrust out his ass without thinking about it, wiggling it in invitation. Maglor slapped Sören's ass, and Sören cried out. Then he looked over his shoulder and panted, "What are you waiting for?"  
  
Sören heard the sound of the lubricant, felt it squirting into his channel. He felt the tip of Maglor's cock against his opening and he cried out, "Yes, fuck me." Then he screamed as Maglor pushed inside him, and Dooku chose that moment to clench his inner muscles again. And again, when Maglor's teeth were on the back of his neck.  
  
" _Mine_ ," Maglor growled.  
  
"Fuck..." Sören shivered.  
  
And then, as Maglor pulled back and pushed in again, his cock hitting Sören's prostate just right, Dooku clenched around Sören again, with a teasing, lazy grin. Sören claimed his mouth again with a growl, and Dooku growled back, kissing him hard, nails digging into Sören's flesh. Now it was Dooku's turn to use his teeth on Sören's shoulder, his neck.  
  
Sören started to rock into him again, and then Maglor set the pace faster, harder. Sören could feel the pleasure and lust and excitement from both of them across their bond, intensifying his own. Sören played with Dooku's cock, balls slapping against him, kissing him again and again as Maglor kissed and licked Sören's neck, nape and shoulder, balls slapping against Sören's from behind. As hard and rough as his thrusts were - and Sören loved it - Maglor's fingers were gentle as they lovingly traced the phoenixes on Sören's back.  
  
"God, I love both of you so much." Sören was breathless. "Need... you... both. Want you."  
  
"Yes, love." Dooku stroked Sören's face, and then he took Maglor's hand; Maglor kissed Dooku's hand, and squeezed it.  
  
"I need to come but I don't want to stop," Sören cried. "I don't ever, ever want to stop..."  
  
And then they couldn't make words anymore, just three male voices moaning, basso, baritone and tenor, the slap of their flesh and the creak of the mattress, the rock of the bed against the wall competing with their voices. Sören felt like he was being baptized by fire, utterly consumed with the mad lust for both of them, needing to fuck and be fucked, wanting to do everything with both of them, lose himself in the beautiful motion of their bodies and the sensation.  
  
But the point of no return was upon them. Dooku teased Sören again, clenching around him, and Sören's response was to nip his throat with a deep growl, slamming into him. He could feel the Prince Albert piercing setting Dooku off, across their bond, who shouted out "Sören,  _Sören_ ," as he climaxed, shooting over him. The feel of Dooku throbbing around him and Maglor's cock hitting the right rhythm inside him sent Sören over the edge, screaming as he spent into his husband. A split second later Maglor cried out "Ada!" as he took one last savage thrust inside Sören, collapsing onto Sören's back, shaking. He moaned "Ada..." more softly, and Sören reached behind him to take Maglor's hands, which felt like they were on fire. He wondered what  _Ada_  meant in Elvish, before his brain turned to jelly with the radiating pleasure.  
  
Sören's nose was in Dooku's chest hair and he could feel Dooku's heartbeat. Sören continued to pulse with his release, feeling like he was melting between the two of them, that the three were melting together into beautiful, beautiful prismatic light. He stirred when he felt Maglor pull out of him, and made a little whine of protest.  
  
"You're still hungry?" Dooku raised an eyebrow, smirking.  
  
Sören nodded. He reached out across their bond to touch Dooku's mind briefly, let him see and feel the state he was in just before Dooku arrived.  
  
Dooku nibbled his shoulder with a little growl. "I need a few moments to recharge."  
  
"I think we can assist with that," Sören said. He grabbed Maglor's hair and pulled him forward, moving out of the way. Without being told, Maglor swallowed down Dooku's cock, readying him again to hardness in no time. Sören stroked himself as he watched Maglor suck Dooku, one hand rubbing Dooku's chest, the other hand petting Maglor's hair, pulling it every now and again. "Good boy," he teased, even though Maglor was considerably older than him. Maglor let out a little whimper and started stroking himself too.  
  
Sören leaned down to kiss Dooku as Maglor sucked, and soon he was kissing and licking Dooku's neck again, kissing and licking his chest, suckling, lapping, and nibbling the nipples. Dooku's hands were buried in Maglor's hair, arched to him, and when his moans were closer together, louder, and he was rolling his hips, gently fucking his mouth, Sören knew he was ready for what came next.  
  
Sören pulled Maglor off Dooku's cock and seized his mouth, licking the precum off his tongue, kissing him again and again as Dooku groaned, stroking himself as he watched them kiss, watched Sören and Maglor caress each other. Then, Sören backed up, straddling Dooku's hips with his back to Dooku, sinking down on Dooku's cock and then laying back, his back against Dooku's chest. Dooku moaned and wrapped his arms around Sören, tilting his face to kiss him deeply. Maglor watched Dooku's cock glide in and out of Sören's channel - his cum getting on Dooku's cock; Sören smiled as he watched Maglor shiver at that - and then Sören made the "come here" gesture.  
  
"I want both of you inside me again," Sören rasped.  
  
Maglor pushed into him slowly, and Sören moaned louder and louder as he was filled, almost bursting at the seams with the two long, thick cocks inside him. The three took each other's hands, and Dooku and Maglor found their rhythm, pushing and pulling, groaning at the feel of their cocks rubbing together, Sören's passage embracing them.  
  
Dooku tilted Sören's face so they could kiss, and Maglor leaned down to kiss Sören, then leaned over Sören's shoulder to kiss Dooku. Their hips rolled together, hands wandered, taking turns kissing each other - every now and again Maglor would lean in to kiss Sören's nipples, tug on the rings with his teeth, eyes flashing as Sören cried out, bucking against them.  
  
They kept the pace slow, sensual, a dreamy haze. Touch upon touch upon touch, heat, savoring the deliciousness between them, how perfect they were together. Sören looked into Maglor's eyes, reached up to touch his face, then hands slid down to his heart.  _I want you always... always._  
  
_You have me._  Maglor kissed him deep.  _I love you. So. Much._  
  
Sören wrapped his arms and legs around him, holding Maglor with all of him. Moaning as one of Dooku's hands grasped his cock, and the other teased Sören's nipples before tilting his head for another hungry kiss. Sören and Dooku's foreheads touched, nuzzling, breathing each other's breath.  _I love you, too._  He didn't ever want to let Dooku go, in the twilight of his life. Twenty years wasn't enough, two hundred years didn't feel like enough, if some miracle of science gave them that. Sören kissed him harder, urged them on faster inside him.  
  
Nothing would ever be enough. He felt wanton, sluttish, addicted to them. He  _burned._  
  
He loved it. He  _fucking_  loved it.


	37. Walking Wounded

**Walking Wounded**

 

 _Tuesday_  
  
  
  
_The heat of the forge, exhaustion, ready to drop, but it isn't done yet. Just one more last detail, this final finishing touch. Pushing, every last ounce of strength, because to leave it undone will make the_  consuming fire  _even worse, not able to let it go, every thought until it is returned to.  
  
He comes to watch the last moments, a mixture of concern and worship in those silver-blue eyes. When it is_ done  _he takes my hands, pulls me to him, kisses me deeply.  
  
"Magnificent," he says. "Not just the work. But this." He runs his hands over me, down and back up, and then traces under and around my eyes. He leans in and kisses my closed eyes, kisses my forehead as if he is kissing a third eye.  
  
Then he picks me up and carries me out of the forge, kissing me all the way to our chamber. He undresses me, kissing the too-hot skin as it is exposed. There is cool wine, and he holds a cup to my lips.  
  
He runs a cup over my body, pouring wine, cooling the flesh. Begins to lick. "I should let you rest, but I can't resist you."  
  
I clutch his head. I never want him to resist me, especially not when he takes me into his mouth like he's starving for it. "Ñolo. Hells, Ñolo." Arching up against him, needing this more than I need food, rest. Everything else can wait. The creative fire is still burning, and our lovemaking is another act of art, of beauty. "Ñolo."_  
  
"Ñolo..."  
  
Sören's nose rubbed in fur, and he felt lips press against the top of his head, a nose in his own curls. Sören snuggled deeper against the warmth, smiling as arms tightened around him. He blinked his sleepy eyes open and looked up, looking into Dooku's dark eyes, crinkled at the corners as he gave Sören a little smile.  
  
Dooku leaned in to kiss his lips, then. Sören noticed Maglor wasn't in bed with them. Noticing Sören noticing, Dooku said, "Macalaurë is out walking Auli."  
  
Sören looked at the clock; it was seventeen minutes before the hour, when the alarm would have gone off. He yawned and stretched as Dooku shut off the alarm, whining a little at Dooku taking an arm away from him to do so, making a contented noise when Dooku's arm was back around him.  
  
"How did you sleep?" Dooku asked, nuzzling Sören's curls again.  
  
"Like the dead. Well, I had some strange dreams." The forge, and Dooku as this "Ñolo" person, who felt like Dooku but bore a strange resemblance to Maglor.  
  
"Strange?"  
  
"Jæja, I don't know how to describe it." Sören felt awkward talking about it, so instead he attempted to distract Dooku from going into barrister interrogation mode with a kiss. And of course what started off as a sweet, innocent kiss didn't stay innocent for long, their lips parting, tongues swirling, and Sören felt Dooku press up against him, hard. Sören's own cock rose in response.  
  
"Fuck," Sören moaned.  
  
"Mmmm." Dooku kissed him again, fingers playing over Sören's chest. He started kissing Sören's neck. "I was watching you sleep,  _thinking_  about you."  
  
"Thinking." Sören found himself rubbing up on Dooku's thigh, shivering at each kiss on his neck, the fingertips brushing his nipples, playing with the rings. "Dirty thoughts, I assume."  
  
"Very."  
  
"God. You're too tempting." Sören sat up, breathing hard. "I'd want to stay in bed with you for hours." He laughed. "Days."  
  
Dooku also sat up, still erect; Sören stole a glance at the hard cock and a little whine escaped him. "I suppose I should encourage you to be responsible, then."  
  
"Probably."  
  
"I wouldn't want to be an enabler."  
  
"That would be bad."  
  
"Even though I like being bad." Dooku's eyes twinkled.  
  
With a groan, Sören shoved Dooku onto his back, with Dooku's head at the foot of the bed. After some more fevered kisses, the two running their hands over each other, they settled into a sixty-nine position, with Sören straddling Dooku's shoulders. They sucked each other hungrily, like they were starving for it, even though they were well-sated last night.  
  
That was how Maglor found them when he came back from walking the dog. Sören could feel his eyes on them as he paused in the doorway, and, not able to help himself, Sören wiggled his ass playfully, invitingly. His lips smiled around Dooku's cock as he heard the sound of Maglor undressing, and then he moaned with his mouth full as he felt Maglor's hard-on rubbing in the crack of his ass, moaning again as Maglor gave his ass a swat.  
  
"You're such a tease, Sören."  
  
"Mmmmmhmmm." Sören let Dooku's cock slip out of his mouth for a minute and looked over his shoulder, grinning. "You love it. You've always loved it."  
  
Maglor slapped his ass again and Sören cried out, and then spread for him before taking Dooku's cock back in his mouth. Sören used the Force to pull over the bottle of lube, letting it hover in the air until he felt Maglor take it, and he whimpered as he felt the lubricant pour over him. Then it was Maglor's turn to tease, just the tip in Sören's entrance, and back out, and just the tip again, and back out. Over and over again, until Sören couldn't take it anymore and took Dooku's cock out of his mouth again to scream, "Will you fucking fuck me."  
  
Maglor laughed, and then he stopped laughing to push all the way in. Both of them gasped when Maglor bottomed out inside him, and Sören took a moment, catching his breath at the fullness, before he resumed sucking Dooku.  
  
Standing behind Sören, Maglor fucked him slowly at first, fingers playing down Sören's spine, up to trace the phoenixes on his back, and lovingly tracing over the scars that the phoenixes covered. The tenderness made Sören moan louder, and buck against him, and Maglor relented, moving harder and faster inside him.  
  
With Dooku's cock in his mouth, his cock in Dooku's mouth, and Maglor's cock inside him stroking away at that sweet spot, Sören hit that edge quickly, and was kept there until he was trembling, almost sobbing with his mouth full. Maglor finally gave in, fucking him hard, sending him over the edge; flooding Dooku's mouth set Dooku off, and tasting him intensified Sören's orgasm, even more pleasure throbbing through him when he felt Maglor spending deep inside.  
  
A few minutes later Sören rolled onto his side, laughing, euphoric. "Shit," he said. He looked at the clock again. "Fuck, we really do have to get ready for classes."  
  
"Yes. We do. And don't forget, we're looking at places in town after." Maglor patted him. He glanced at Dooku. "Are you quite sure you don't want to come with us?"  
  
Dooku nodded. "In fact, I recant what I said yesterday - I think I'll just let you both pick it out altogether, as opposed to me helping with the final selection. Surprise me."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. He could hear the unspoken  _I don't want to be reminded this may be my last home_. He didn't like it.  
  
"All right," Maglor said. He took Sören's hand and pulled him up off the bed. "Let's get ready and get out of here, or we're..." He looked at Dooku, naked, and made a hungry little growl. "Never getting out of here."  
  
Dooku smiled at them, attempting to look innocent. "Your innocent face is as believable as mine," Sören said.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Some time after Sören and Maglor took off, Dooku was sitting at his laptop, attempting to write, but all he could think of was the word that had come out of Sören's mouth as he began to wake up. " _Ñolo._ "  
  
More than once now, Dooku had flashes of memory of someone who felt like Sören, but had longer, straight dark hair, calling him that. Dooku had often wondered, when they first got together, why Sören called him Nico, something nobody else ever called him, and seeing those memories of another lifetime, it made more sense. Dooku hadn't shared those memories with Sören, so there was no way Sören was parroting something Dooku had told him. And it confirmed that those memories were indeed something legitimate, if Sören was saying that name.  
  
Curious, Dooku typed "nyolo" into Google and immediately got  
  
"did you mean nylon"  
"did you mean YOLO"  
  
"NO, I DID NOT MEAN YOLO, THAT IS NOT EVEN A WORD," Dooku shouted at the screen, and then, realizing he'd yelled at an inanimate object, leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose, making a noise into his tea. "Kids these days, with their  _swag_  and their  _YOLO_..."  
  
Dooku took a deep breath, and put his tea down. That obviously wasn't going to go anywhere.  
  
He closed his eyes and thought for a minute, and it occurred to him that while he was on Google, he probably should look up Maglor's uncle, since Maglor had noted they were a lot alike, and Dooku wanted to have some context on his partner's personal history - it had been quite a long time since Dooku had read the  _Silmarillion_ , and he knew he should re-read it at some point, but for now an article somewhere summing up the "fictional character" would suffice.  
  
His heart started to race as he clicked a link for Fingolfin.  
  
_Other names: Ñolofinwë_  
  
His breath caught, and his eyes widened.  
  
"No, that can't be."  
  
More Google, and the Star of House Fingolfin was the same symbol Sören had painted on the shield in the painting of him at the Dimmuborgir, the shield set with crystals.  
  
The dreams of the man who felt like Sören but had longer, straight hair and a somewhat different face, in the forge... and all of the fire imagery that Sören painted, had inked on his very skin...  
  
_Fëanor._  
  
Dooku blinked slowly. In his mind's eye he could see it. Remembered the heat of passion...  _Náro._  
  
More than once he had remarked to Sören they bantered like siblings. That even if he had been the younger of the two, he'd be the more mature one. He was the elder of the two now, of course.  
  
They had found their way to each other again. They had found their way to  _Maglor_. Dooku got the sense that they weren't supposed to - but for a twist of fate here or there, they could have never met each other, never met Maglor. It was not lost on Dooku that Sören's move to London - where they found each other - had been instigated by Van. Like he'd intervened.  
  
Dooku felt almost like he should feel guilty, that incest is wrong... but he could feel it, how much he'd loved Fëanor, loved Maglor, then as he did now. The torment of the Void, before his soul was sent back to be reborn, ripped apart from them and aching for what was  _his_.   
  
He would never condone a human uncle and nephew, father and son, or two brothers, having a sexual relationship... but they had not been human. They had been almost as gods. Even walking among Men for thousands of years, having to hide and blend in, Maglor was godlike, enough that Dooku had unconsciously reverted to facets of his Orthodox upbringing, making the Sign of the Cross and praying the Paternoster the first time he'd seen Maglor unglamoured. Dooku better understood the incest rampant in mythologies now, that it was different on that scale of being than it was for humans, where it was more likely to cause problems. Their blood sang, fire calling to fire.  
  
And in any case,  _nothing_  excused the horror that had been the Void. He could see it in his mind's eye, with his eyes closed, he could feel the bottomless, endless loneliness and despair.  
  
He would love them again, if he had to do it over, even if he would be judged and damned again. It had been magnificent. They were three parts of a greater, glorious whole. They were  _made_  for each other.  
  
He knew Sören did not know who he was.  _Yet._  He ached to call Sören immediately and tell him, "You're Fëanor," but something in him told him  _not yet, it is not yet time. Soon._  And he'd learned from experience to trust those feelings, so as much as it bothered him to sit on that knowledge and say nothing... he would say nothing.  
  
And he felt self-conscious about possibly bringing it up to Maglor, worried that Maglor would disbelieve him, or worse, think he was trying to be manipulative somehow with making false claims to try to ensure his love and loyalty, and  _that_  would make Maglor decide to leave. Unlike the voice inside him that told him not to tell Sören, this wasn't a gut feeling, he recognized it as paranoia, that might or might not be legitimate. But they'd all had enough stress lately without putting himself through the stress of sitting Maglor down and having another serious talk. They needed a break from that for at least another couple of days - maybe he might bring it up over the weekend at the wedding.  
  
Maybe not. He'd play it by ear.  
  
In the meantime... Dooku rubbed his face and took a few deep breaths.  _I was Fingolfin in a past life. As Sören would say, this is fine._  Being reincarnated as mortal, after having been something close to a god... that had unfortunate implications, made all the more unfortunate for the knowledge that they had come very close to not finding each other again.  
  
It was not yet noon, but Dooku went to the liquor cabinet anyway and took down the bottle of Auchentoshan.  
  
  
_  
  
When Sören and Maglor were done with their classes at the studio, just as they were walking out of the building, about to lock up, they saw Vanimórë's Bentley pull into the parking lot.  
  
"Oh shit," Sören said under his breath, not knowing why he was there unannounced.  
  
After Vanimórë got out of the car, Maglor folded his arms. "Vanimórë. What brings you here?"  
  
Vanimórë walked towards them. "Dooku informed me the two of you are going into Akureyri to look at a new place to live."  
  
"Yes, and...?"  
  
"I'm coming with you."  
  
Sören attempted a moment of levity. "Hi coming with you, I'm -"  
  
Vanimórë laughed, while Maglor glared, and Vanimórë seemed to laugh harder at Maglor's glaring. He reached to pet Sören's curls and planted a kiss on his brow. "I've missed you, beauty."  
  
"Miss you too." Sören put his arms around him and stood up on tiptoes to nuzzle him, and couldn't resist giving him a kiss. Maglor was still glaring, so Sören pulled back, not wanting to actually upset him. Then Sören raised an eyebrow. "May I ask why you're inviting yourself along to look at properties with us?"  
  
"When you decide on one, I will buy it for you," Vanimórë said.  
  
Maglor shook his head. "I have plenty of money, and I don't want to be in your debt -"  
  
Vanimórë put up a hand in protest. "It will be a bit safer if this property is in the name of Apollyon Enterprises. You have moved around more than usual within the last ten years, you want to keep your accounts free from suspicion. This will buy you some time for things to be normal before..." His voice trailed off, frowning.  
  
Sören assumed he was talking about Maglor's need to move every seven years or so, and taking his two partners with him the next time, but there was something that told Sören it wasn't that but a more serious matter altogether, and he got chills. He thought about asking Vanimórë what he was getting on about, but decided not to, since the moment was awkward enough with the unexpected company.  
  
"I understand your reasoning but I still don't like it," Maglor said.  
  
"Consider it a gift." Vanimórë looked at Sören. "To you, Sören. The art I own from you... is worth far more than I paid for it."  
  
"Oh, you." Sören gave him a playful swat. "Flatterer."  
  
"I speak the truth."  
  
Sören's face flushed and he felt that warm glow of pride. Vanimórë stroked the smiling face, returning a fond smile of his own.  
  
Then Sören said, "Jæja, if you're coming with us to look at properties, I see no reason why we need two cars for that, producing twice the emissions. Plus, it's quite conspicuous for both a Jaguar  _and_  a Bentley to roll up."  
  
Maglor nodded. "I'll concede that."  
  
"I don't mind riding in the back seat," Vanimórë said.  
  
Sören's mind immediately went in the gutter, his flush deepening.  _I bet._  He thought about the times Vanimórë took him from behind.  
  
Vanimórë's eyes twinkled, as if he knew what Sören was thinking. He concluded his sentence with, "So Sören can have more leg room."  
  
_I think I need room for my third leg, with the two of you around._  " _Takk_ ," Sören said, walking ahead to the passenger side front door. "We'll bring you back here when we're done."  
  
Once they got on the road, Sören pulled out his cell phone and began to look up available properties on the Internet. He told Maglor the location of each one, and he used the GPS device on his car to navigate the way there. None of them were terrible, but none of them really grabbed Sören or Maglor, either, and Sören felt as if he should have a "yes,  _this_ " reaction to the place.  
  
They quickly exhausted the listings within Akureyri, and then, before they could drive back to the studio to drop off Vanimórë and call it a day, Sören pointed to a street and said, "D'you think we could take a little detour?"  
  
Maglor raised an eyebrow, but he nodded.  
  
Sören explained, "This is the very first neighborhood I lived in. I was here as a baby, and my mother and us stayed here till a couple years after my father died, then she got another place in Akureyri. I don't remember too many things about those years since I was four when we moved out, but I do have a few memories, some of the only happy memories of my childhood. I used to go for walks through here sometimes when things were bad at home with my aunt and uncle."  
  
Maglor drove down the street slowly. Sören's eyes widened as he saw the yellow house with its blue picket fence, between a red house and green house with blue picket fences, the old yellow house still unchanged after all these years... and there was a sign in front of it that read TIL SÖLU - Icelandic for FOR SALE - with a number at the bottom. Sören dialed the number on his phone, and then he saw a balding, portly man in a suit come out of the house, and the man's cell phone was ringing.  
  
"Halló?" the man answered, echoing in Sören's ear.  
  
Sören hit End, leaned over to honk the horn on the driver's side, and leapt out of the car.  
  
  
_  
  
  
The house was old enough to be a fixer-upper, but it was theirs now, and they could start moving in at any time. It still felt surreal, when Sören got back in the car.  
  
"What are the odds?" he said.  
  
"That is... quite a coincidence." Maglor looked a little unsettled himself.  
  
"Jæja, wait till I tell Dag and Margrét, they won't believe it." Sören leaned back in the seat and took a few deep breaths, trying to calm his nerves. For a moment it almost felt like his mother was around.  
  
"We could have a housewarming party next week after we get back from the wedding and we've settled in some. How long is your brother staying in Iceland...?"  
  
"Not long. He's going back to Canada after the wedding. I don't think he can get an extension or a refund on his airline tickets." Sören frowned. "It's not so much because of him or his husband, he's bringing a friend with him, one of his fellow professors, and he's got animals or something."  He'd talked to his brother on the phone recently, who'd given him flight info, asking to be met at the airport.  
  
"Makes sense."  
  
Sören rubbed his face, looking out the window. He felt another random impulse. "So, um... can we take another detour?"  
  
"Where to?"  
  
Sören looked back at Maglor. "The farm my great-grandparents owned, that's been in my family for centuries, and it was sold in the 1980s after they died because nobody else in the family knows how to farm anymore. But, um." He braced himself. "I believe that was the farm your son bought in the 1600s, with his wealth, and it's where his ashes are scattered."  
  
Maglor said nothing, and just drove.  
  
Sören was genuinely confused as they drove into Svalbarðseyri, and finally as they turned into their street, Sören asked, "Wh-what are you doing?"  
  
They stopped at the cabin. "I need to get something."  
  
A few moments later, Maglor came out with his harp case, a bucket and a shovel. He popped the trunk, and carried the bucket and shovel to the trunk, then his harp. He got back in the car, slamming the door, and got back on the road, stony-faced.  
  
They finally pulled up at the farm, in the lush green hills. Sheep grazed, pigs wallowed, goats bleated. Sören casually knew the owners, who usually didn't have a problem with Sören taking a walk around his ancestral home. Their vehicle space was empty, indicating they were probably in town running errands or perhaps out to dinner, and Sören gestured. "It'll be OK, I know the people."  
  
Maglor and Sören got out of the car, and then a moment later Vanimórë did also. Maglor popped the trunk, and took out the shovel and bucket first, which he thrust into Sören's hands. Then he took out the harp, and marched into the field with the harp case, looking straight ahead, not speaking. Sören saw dark clouds gathering in the sky, smelled petrichor on the air, could feel the heaviness around Maglor.  
  
When Maglor was a good distance into the field, where there was a large rock he could sit on, he set the harp case down and opened it. Sören stepped forward, wanting to go to him, and Vanimórë held out his arm to stop him. Then he took Sören's hand.  _Just watch_ , he spoke into Sören's mind.  
  
Maglor began to play, a song Sören had never heard before, all minor chords, so melancholy it brought tears to Sören's eyes. He heard Maglor singing, in Elvish, and the melody tore at him. In Sören's mind's eye he could see Tindómion, tall proud and beautiful, Maglor seeing him for the first time as he played his harp and Tindómion played in another place, deliberately pulling the strings of their bond as he plucked the strings of his harp. Maglor's grief over how Tindómion was conceived, and the awe of the magnificence of him, something  _good_  to come out of so much bad, like a star of hope made flesh. He saw Tindómion performing kind deeds to others - rescuing people in distress, sharing wealth with those who needed it, whether Elf or Man or Hobbit. He saw Tindómion playing the harp and singing again, talented in his own right. He saw Tindómion fighting valiantly, skilled with a sword, fierce in battle.  
  
Sören saw Tindómion with a man with long dark hair and silver-blue eyes, bearing a resemblance to the Ñolo of his dreams but feeling like a different person... the two clasping each other's hands, kissing, embracing.   
  
Then he saw Tindómion and Maglor meeting in the flesh for the first time, feeling Tindómion's anger towards him, giving way to understanding, compassion, mercy, warmth, love and admiration.   
  
Tindómion's mate falling in battle, and Tindómion, in grief, walking out into mists, not looking back, despite Maglor trying to call him, get him to stay. Maglor's endless grief, the son he hadn't known he had, the star of hope shining on him for what seemed the briefest moment in his long life, to be lost again.  
  
The vision in Sören's mind's eye then changed Maglor of the somewhat more recent past, at Stonehenge, coming back to his flat, alone, feeling lost in the world, desolate, crying. Looking at a map of the world, trying to figure out where to go next, thinking of Iceland, not knowing why. Coming here where his son's ashes were buried, and from the ashes rose Sören, the two making passionate love together,  _burning_ , mental images of them loving in flames, Maglor feeling a dying flame within him lit once more, as he looked into Sören's eyes. And yet, as he celebrated love, Tindómion and his mate were in the darkness of the Void, and he still  _grieved_ , wanting all of his family with him.  
  
Maglor stopped playing, at last, and just broke down crying.  
  
Sören was grieving with him, too, aching, wanting to scream and howl at the  _injustice_  of it all, wanting to run to Maglor and take him in his arms and never let go. Wishing there was some way he could take Maglor's pain away, even willing to take the pain for him, take all of it on himself. Kate Bush briefly played in his head:  
  
_And if I only could,  
I'd make a deal with God,  
And I'd get him to swap our places_  
  
Sören swallowed hard, tears burning his eyes, heart pounding.  _I would walk through fire for you._  For a brief instant he wanted to do just that, immolate himself, willing to  _die_  if it would give Maglor back everything he lost - his father and uncle, his brothers, his son, the world he came from.  _I am a poor substitute for the glory you once had, a poor reward for the pain you have endured._  
  
The sky was all dark now, preparing for a storm. Sören let go of Vanimórë's hand and pushed on ahead, carrying the shovel and bucket, and near Maglor's harp, he knelt and began digging up earth, flinging it into the bucket. It was a harder job than it seemed, the soil unyielding at first, Sören having to put a lot of strength into the digging, enough that his lungs began to wheeze. When he got the bucket halfway filled, he stopped and drew out his inhaler. It was the show of Sören exhausting himself, having an asthma attack to do this, that made Maglor stop playing, and he went to Sören, arms encircling him. "Are you all right?" Maglor's not-Latin accent was heavier than usual.  
  
Sören nodded. Then he pointed at the sky. "We should -" Thunder boomed.  
  
The storm was close, and the harp was made of metal. Maglor got it out of the way just before lightning struck, and quickly shoved the harp back in its case, with Sören and Maglor running to the Jaguar as the rain began to pelt them. It wasn't just rain - it was  _hail_. Sören watched, fascinated, as he got in the car after throwing the shovel and bucket in the trunk. Maglor turned on the windshield wipers, cursing under his breath.  
  
Then he fell apart, crying so hard he couldn't drive, his face in his hands, rocking himself. He started to babble in Elvish - even his raw, primal grief sounded musical, accompanied by the drumming of hailstones pelting the car. Sören leaned over and put his arms around him. "Maglor.  _Elskan._  I love you."  
  
"I failed my son.  _I failed my son_  -"  
  
"No."  
  
"I failed my father, I failed my brothers, I failed my son."  
  
"No." Sören didn't want to hear that, wanting to shake him, wanting Maglor to see what he saw, feel what he felt, the beauty in him, the  _goodness_  in him.  
  
"Sören, you don't..." Maglor shook his head. "I ruin everything I touch." And then he just sobbed some more, brokenly.  
  
_You don't, Maglor. You brought me back to life, years ago._  Sören remembered clearly, the years before they met, the way he'd felt adrift after his suicide attempt, never really getting back the purpose that others swore he would find, staying alive... and then Maglor's fire called to his fire,  _guided_  his creativity. They had been good together. They still were good together.  
  
Sören just patted him, not wanting to get into an argument trying to make Maglor see reason, and after a few minutes he said, "Switch places with me, I'mma drive."  
  
Maglor gave him a look for suggesting that, even though he knew Sören was a competent driver, but he got out of the car, and Sören got in the driver's seat, Maglor in the passenger's seat.  
  
"Mkay," Sören said. "Driving back to the studio now -"  
  
"No," Vanimórë said.  
  
"No?" Sören looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow, before he pulled out onto the road. There was another clap of thunder.  
  
"Hotel first. Maglor should calm down some before he returns home."  
  
"I doubt very much that going back to your hotel room -" Maglor's jaw set, and then he sobbed some more.  
  
"Back to the hotel," Vanimórë said, rubbing Sören's shoulder, "then we can go to the studio for me to fetch my car."  
  
  
_  
  
  
It was still raining hard, with the occasional dash of hail, when Sören pulled into the Hotel Akureyri. He gave door service to Vanimórë and Maglor, before he parked and made a mad dash for the door. Sören didn't mind rain, as a rule, but getting bonked by hailstones was another thing entirely.  
  
Vanimórë and Maglor were waiting for him in the hotel lobby, and Vanimórë walked them to his room. "Make yourselves comfortable," he said, gesturing to the couch and an armchair. Sören kicked off his Doc Martens boots and sat on the couch, patting the seat beside him; Maglor walked over and sat down and took off his shoes, and once they were off, Sören pulled him close, stroking his hair. He rocked Maglor, who was crying more softly now, but was still crying.  
  
Vanimórë came back with a bottle of champagne, and three glasses. "If I'm driving I need to limit it to one," Sören said.  
  
Vanimórë poured his first, then poured one for Maglor, who just stared at it, still continuing to weep quietly, until Sören used the Force to bring the glass to his lips.  
  
"You needed to mourn," Sören said.  
  
"I've known for some time that in all likelihood I would never see my son again," Maglor said. "But it's one thing to have a feeling, and another thing to..."  
  
"...know he's gone," Sören said, nodding.  
  
"No one's ever really gone," Vanimórë said.  
  
Maglor gave him a withering look.  
  
"I have told you, there are powers stronger than the Doom." Vanimórë looked at the champagne in his glass, as if he could see something in the golden bubbles that they could not.  
  
"Has he been reborn, as well?" Maglor almost spat.  
  
"Not yet."  
  
"Wh...?" Sören's eyebrows went up at that.  
  
"We'll talk this weekend," Maglor said, his tone of voice flat once more.  
  
"It's a lot," Vanimórë said. "And we need to deal with one thing at a time. Right now... Macalaurë needs some extra loving care."  
  
"Don't you  _fucking_  pity me," Maglor snapped.  
  
" _Maglor._ " Sören took Maglor's chin in his hand and tilted his face up, his tone stern. "Concern... caring... is not the same thing as pity. And we do care. I know it might be hard for you to see it with Van, whatever history is between you, but..." Sören kissed Maglor's forehead, and rained little kisses over his face. Maglor started crying again, and Sören kissed his tears, with tears burning his own eyes, aching for him. His arms tightened around Maglor, continuing to rock him, pet him. "You don't have to bear this burden of grief alone. We're here for you."  
  
"He's right," Vanimórë said softly.  
  
Sören continued kissing Maglor's tears, petting his hair, and then at last Vanimórë joined them on the couch, putting an arm around Maglor. Sören looked into Maglor's eyes, letting Maglor see the tears in his eyes, letting Maglor  _feel_  across their bond how desperately he wanted to soothe him, make things better for him somehow. He glanced at Vanimórë, who was now gently rubbing Sören's knee - Vanimórë was not tearful at all, and Sören got the sense that he didn't cry, that it had been beaten out of him a long time ago, as Sauron's son. But nonetheless Sören could feel the tenderness there, responding to the internal screams, the hidden wounds endlessly bleeding. Sören reached and put his hand over Vanimórë's, signaling without words, just feeling.  
  
Then Sören withdrew his hand, and took Maglor's face between his hands, and drew him into a kiss, hungry and deep. Maglor did not resist. His breath hitched and he melted into the kiss, and then he kissed Sören back with all the fire in him, taking Sören's breath away as he shoved Sören back against the pillows, kissing him hard, tongue insistent, hands beginning to roam over Sören's body.  
  
Vanimórë took Maglor's chin in his hand and turned his head, and then Vanimórë kissed him, gently and teasingly. His tongue playfully rubbed against Maglor's and then he drew Maglor's lower lip between his teeth, before kissing him again, harder. Maglor made a little whimper into the kiss, shuddering, and Sören couldn't help but rub the bulge forming in his jeans as he watched Maglor kissing Vanimórë back, not as intensely as they had kissed, but with its own kind of intensity,  _yielding_.  
  
Sören stood up, and then Vanimórë stood up, and they kissed each other. Vanimórë pulled off Sören's shirt and caressed his bare chest, fingers lingering on the nipples, and when Vanimórë began to kiss Sören's neck, Sören could feel him looking at Maglor, as if issuing a challenge. Sören smiled as he cupped Vanimórë's chin, stroking it slowly, tracing the full lips with his finger before moving in for a sensual kiss. Then Vanimórë and Sören each took one of Maglor's hands, pulling him to his feet.  
  
They made their way to the bed, silently undressing. When the three were naked - and Vanimórë had removed the contacts he wore in public - Sören came closer to Maglor and Vanimórë, kissing each of them in turn. He moaned appreciatively, stroking himself as he watched Vanimórë pull Maglor into a kiss, fingers walking over him. Sören found himself getting on his knees and taking both their cocks into his mouth, fitting as much of them into his mouth as he could, to the point where he gagged a little and had to pull back slightly, then relaxed his throat and tried again. Rewarded by the sound of Maglor crying out, which made Sören's cock twinge, so he had to start stroking himself again, Sören sucked hungrily, rubbing his tongue as he sucked. He loved feeling both Vanimórë and Maglor tug on his curls, looking up at them adoringly, watching Vanimórë kiss Maglor again and again, Maglor melting into the kisses, shivering, until his free hand was also playing over Vanimórë's body. Sören teasingly let their cocks slip from his mouth and furiously lashed his tongue over the heads of their cocks, down over the shafts and back up, loving the way both men groaned as they felt his tongue playing. At last Sören began sucking them again, feeling feverish, stroking himself harder and faster,  _wanting_. Sören started shaking, already so close to the edge, and just before he could climax, Vanimórë pulled his hair  _hard_ , as if he could sense Sören was right there, and pulled Sören off their cocks.  
  
"Not yet, beauty," he said, running his finger over Sören's lips, before Sören sucked on his finger, eyes pleading.  
  
Sören rose, Vanimórë kissed him hard, and Maglor kissed Sören harder. Sören and Vanimórë guided Maglor onto the bed, climbing on either side of him. Sören gently pushed Maglor back onto the pillows, climbing over him, kissing him deeply. Maglor wrapped his arms around Sören, kissing him back, and they both groaned as their hard cocks pressed together, groaning again as Sören began to grind against him, cock rubbing cock, teasing them both. As Sören kissed, licked, and nibbled Maglor's neck, Vanimórë pulled him into a kiss, stroking his hair and face. Sören kissed Vanimórë, then claimed Maglor's mouth again, and when Vanimórë kissed Maglor once more, Maglor moaned into the kiss and Sören gave a little growl of approval, nipping Maglor's neck harder.  
  
Sören and Vanimórë worked on Maglor together, kissing, licking, and caressing down the length of his body, paying special attention to his nipples, stomach, and thighs. Maglor arched to them, panting, moaning, grabbing their hair, and made a noise of frustration when they worked their way back up, from the thighs to the hips and stomach, back to the chest, teasing his nipples some more. Sören slowly stroked Maglor's cock, kissing and licking from the nipples to the shoulder to the neck, and back down. Sören felt him leaking precum, and stuck his fingers in Vanimórë's mouth, smiling as Vanimórë slowly licked and sucked the cream from his fingers, savoring the taste. Vanimórë continued to suck on Sören's fingers like he was sucking a cock, making Sören's cock throb, and also making him hungry... not for food.  
  
Sören found himself pulling Vanimórë's hair now, which made Vanimórë smile at him before giving him a passionate kiss.  
  
_I love to see this aggressive side of you, beauty._  
  
Sören nibbled Vanimórë's lower lip with a growl, and then, continuing to pull Vanimórë's hair, he guided Vanimórë to Maglor's cock. Vanimórë didn't have to be told what to do, eyes riveted on Maglor as he took Maglor into his mouth, inch by inch. Sören heard himself making a whining noise as he watched. "Fuck, that is fucking  _hot_ ," Sören gasped, stroking himself again.  
  
Before he could bring himself off just watching, Sören made himself slow down on his cock, teasing himself, and he moved his head. Knowing what Sören wanted, Vanimórë, still sucking Maglor's cock, gave him some room. Sören's tongue brushed the sensitive place between Maglor's balls and ass - he loved the way Maglor bucked and cried out, grabbing his head - and then after a few teasing licks his tongue slid into Maglor's opening. He licked slowly, deliberately, tongue rubbing the prostate with lazy strokes. Sören moaned into Maglor's ass as he heard Maglor crying out, panting, felt him trembling.  
  
For the next while Vanimórë and Sören feasted on Maglor together, Vanimórë sucking his cock, Sören tonguing his ass, taking him right to that edge and keeping him there. Every now and again Sören and Vanimórë would stop what they were doing and kiss each other, tongues playfully licking together between kisses, and the sight of them kissing seemed to inflame Maglor's lust even more.  
  
At last, with Sören's tongue rubbing inside him hard and fast, Maglor ground out, " _Please._ "  
  
Sören stopped. "Please what,  _elskan_?"  
  
"I need..."  
  
"Need what?"  
  
"You." Maglor swallowed hard. His eyes were feverish, almost mad. "You inside me. Now."  
  
Sören bit his lower lip and crinkled his nose. Maglor  _growled_  at that, grabbing Sören's curls and yanking him up, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood, sucking the blood like his life depended on it. Sören moaned and kissed him hard - even though his tongue had just been inside him, Maglor tasted sweet and clean there, and something about the sheer primal lewdness of the kiss made them both groan into the kiss.  
  
"How about if I share you?" Sören purred, teasingly kissing his neck. "Both of us inside you... comforting you..." Sören pressed a kiss to his brow. "Not alone anymore, Macalaurë."  
  
Maglor took a moment, and then he nodded. "Yes."  
  
Sören used the Force to fetch the lube from Vanimórë's bedtable, as Vanimórë came up to kiss Maglor, running his hand over Maglor's chest, down his stomach and thigh back up again. He took a moment to stroke Maglor's face, looking into his eyes, and Maglor looked at him with something other than contempt. Sören poured lube over Vanimórë's cock and Maglor's channel, and began kissing Maglor as Vanimórë lay back against the pillows and pulled Maglor towards him, his back to Vanimórë's chest. Sören stopped kissing Maglor to watch Vanimórë's cock go in, watch Maglor's reactions as he was stretched, filled, and then Vanimórë took the first few thrusts inside him, pleasing both of them.  
  
Sören poured lube over his own cock and stroked himself, Maglor's eyes riveted, hungry. "You still want this?" Sören rasped.  
  
"Sören, I think I'm gonna die if you don't." A split second later he muttered, " _Hells,_ " knowing he'd just walked into it.  
  
Sören felt himself grinning as he said, "Hi gonna die if you don't -"  
  
With another growl that made Sören shiver, cock throbbing with need, Maglor grabbed Sören's curls and kissed him hard. Maglor's hand seized Sören's cock, guiding it to his opening. The tip pressed up there and Sören kissed him more gently. He took Maglor's hand with one hand, and Vanimórë's hand with the other, and began to push in, slowly.  
  
Maglor tensed, taking deep breaths as Sören worked his way in. When Sören was all the way in, the velvet steel of Vanimórë's cock against his, the tight slick heat of Maglor wrapped around him - the way he could feel Vanimórë's cock throbbing against his own - it all almost set Sören off again, and he had to bite his own hand to not come just yet. Then he kissed Maglor hard as he pulled back, and kissed him again as he pushed back in. He found a rhythm with Vanimórë, pushing and pulling, and leaned over Maglor's shoulder to kiss Vanimórë too.  
  
They made love for a long time, slowly fucking him, Vanimórë kissing and licking Maglor's neck and the sensitive point of his ear as Sören kissed Maglor's mouth, tongues playing together... every now and again Vanimórë tilting Maglor's face so they could kiss, as Sören kissed, licked, and nibbled Maglor's neck, leaned down to lap and suckle and bite his nipples, loving the way Maglor arched up and bucked against him, moaning. One of Sören's hands played with Maglor's cock, stroking slowly, as the fingers of the other whispered over Maglor's chest and stomach, sometimes reaching over to stroke Vanimórë's face, trace the swirling black tattoos on his arm.  
  
They kept the pace slow until they couldn't anymore, Maglor starting to work his hips, riding, fucking himself on their cocks. Sören couldn't resist, plunging harder and faster. Maglor's loud, desperate cries of pleasure and need drove Sören wild, bringing out the animal side of him, and Sören found himself propping Maglor's legs on his shoulders, driving into him hard, and the feel of Vanimórë's cock rubbing his just made it that much better. Sören was shaking from head to toe, gasping for breath, wanting both of them, completely lost in his lust, the passion, the  _heat_. Maglor's cries got louder, and Sören groaned at the sight of Maglor's cock completely slick with precum. He collected some on his fingers and stuck them into Vanimórë's mouth, continuing to pound away with a deep growl as Vanimórë licked and sucked his fingers, savoring the taste of him.  
  
Maglor was lapsing into Elvish now, and he looked up at Sören, the look in his eyes making Sören feel like he was being set aflame like the phoenix on his back, and it was glorious. Sören stroked his face with one hand, keeping the other on his cock.  
  
"Ada... Ada..."  
  
Sören still had no idea what that meant, but instinctively he leaned in, kissed Maglor's forehead tenderly, his lips sliding down Maglor's nose to his mouth, giving him the sweetest and gentlest of kisses, a counterpoint to his cock banging away inside him, the bed slamming against the wall. "I'm right here, love. Right here. Not alone anymore. I'm taking care of you now..."  
  
Maglor started to cry. Sören slowed down, not knowing if he was hurting Maglor or if Maglor was just having an emotional catharsis, and then decided it was the latter when Maglor seized his face in his hands and kissed him, hard. Sören's hands covered Maglor's and for the next few minutes Sören just rocked slowly inside him, kissing him again and again. Maglor had been unglamoured all this time, glowing but not as intensely under the lights, and now it was so bright it was starting to  _hurt_. And when Sören's hands let go of Maglor's to run over his body, Sören saw it wasn't just Maglor who was glowing, but he was glowing now too, there was light coming from him as well.  
  
_Weird,_  was all the thought Sören would give it before kissing Maglor back again, hard, hungry,  _fire_ , and moving in for the kill, driving even harder and faster than before. He turned his face to kiss Vanimórë, to give him a taste of the same fire coursing through his veins, and smiled into the kiss as he felt Vanimórë tremble, heard the primal noise he made, gasping as Sören moved a hand to touch him again.  
  
They didn't last much longer. Maglor let out a seemingly-endless howl as he erupted over Sören's chest and stomach, and two thrusts later Sören was done, shattering inside him with a wild cry, and he shuddered again, whimpering as he felt Vanimórë's hot seed spurt over his cock, the two flooding him, making Maglor cry out again. Sören buried his face inside Maglor's chest, shaking uncontrollably as the pleasure spun through him, the world itself spun, the light like a supernova now, the heat threatening to melt off his skin.  
  
He came back awhile later, Maglor's heartbeat slowed, Maglor gently stroking his curls.  
  
"Shit," was all Sören could say.  
  
Maglor laughed. "Yes, that was...  _something._ " He looked almost a little self-conscious.  
  
Sören came up to kiss him, and their foreheads touched for a moment, breathing each other's breath.  
  
"Thank you," Maglor said at last. He turned his face to Vanimórë and said, "Both of you."  
  
Vanimórë pressed a gentle kiss to Maglor's forehead and stroked his face. Maglor allowed it, and Sören felt like some sort of understanding had passed between them. Sören didn't think it was quite the end of whatever ancient conflict they seemed to have, but it was a start.  
  
"We better get out of here before I get tempted to do more and my poor husband is wondering what happened," Sören said, pulling off of them.  
  
Maglor nodded and sat up. "I need a nap."  
  
Vanimórë laughed. "Perhaps one night, the three of us can... enjoy ourselves longer." Vanimórë looked at Sören. "Maybe even the four of us."  
  
Sören let out a groan, quickly pulling on his clothes, wanting to fuck until he dropped dead at the thought of Dooku joining in  _that_. "God..."  
  
When the three were dressed, and Maglor and Vanimórë had re-glamoured themselves to go out in public, with Vanimórë's contacts back in, they walked out to the Jaguar. The storm had stopped, though the skies were still grey. Sören drove to the studio so Vanimórë could get his Bentley, and between the two cars, they lingered. Sören pulled Vanimórë into an embrace, finally, and whispered, "I so want to take you up on that foursome."  
  
"If we don't get time at the wedding this weekend, I'll be in town a few more days after that, and we'll... find time." Vanimórë kissed Sören's forehead.  
  
Then Sören pouted. "You can't stay in Akureyri awhile longer?"  
  
"No, beauty. I have other business to take care of."  
  
That sounded vaguely ominous. Sören gave him the sad puppy dog face. "Awwwww, please?"  
  
Vanimórë laughed, affectionately stroking Sören's chin. "I'm afraid not."  
  
"It's not... you're not bored with me or annoyed by me...?"  
  
Vanimórë gave him a stern look, and Sören could  _feel_  the anger from him - cold, unlike Maglor's fire when there was the same emotion. The anger wasn't for him, but Sören saw Justin in his mind's eye, and the others who had hurt him. "I could never get tired of you. No, my dear, it really is business."  
  
Sören narrowed his eyes. "Business, or  _business._ "  
  
"The latter, but... more will be explained this weekend." Vanimórë tapped on the passenger's side window, where Maglor was already falling asleep. Maglor groggily blinked his eyes open and Vanimórë waved at him, blowing a kiss. Maglor gave him a look that seemed equal parts affection and annoyance, and Sören grinned.  
  
"All right, get on with you, or I'll be too tempted to do something we shouldn't do in public," Vanimórë said.  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip, and Vanimórë gave a little growl of frustration, swatting Sören's ass on the way to the Bentley.  
  
Sören got back in the Jaguar and began the drive into the village. He helped Maglor into the cottage - Dooku was making dinner, and his face showed quiet concern as he watched Sören walking Maglor to the bed.  
  
"He probably needs to sleep right now, so if you want to save some leftovers to heat up for him later...?" Sören asked.  
  
Dooku nodded, and went back to the kitchen.  
  
Sören walked Maglor to the bed, sat him down, took off Maglor's shoes, and then helped him under the covers, tucking him in. Maglor curled up on the pillows and Sören stayed there a few minutes, petting him back to sleep, finally kissing his forehead when he heard Maglor's breathing rhythm change, indicating he was out.  
  
Sören got up and saw Dooku had been watching the scene from the bedroom door. He walked to him and just put his arms around Dooku, resting there for a moment as Dooku pet him.  
  
"What happened?" Dooku asked, keeping his voice down as they walked back through the house.  
  
"We have a house," Sören said. "It's the same house where I spent the first four years of my life."  
  
"Oh." Dooku's eyes widened. " _Oh._  That is very... interesting."  
  
Sören nodded solemnly. "And then I took him to the old family farm. Where he, ah... his son, one of my ancestors... his ashes are scattered there. I got some soil where I think the ashes were."  
  
"I see." Dooku nodded.  
  
"He needed..."  
  
Dooku continued to nod, knowing without being told what Maglor needed.  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "Anyway, we can start moving in to the new house anytime. It needs a little work, but not anything impossible."  
  
"All right."  
  
Sören put his arms around Dooku then, and kissed him. "Has a little yard, so you can still have a garden and stuff." He nibbled on Dooku's neck, breathing in his cologne, not able to help himself. "It's fenced in, so maybe we could, um."  
  
"Er."  
  
"Uh."  
  
"You have a one-track mind." Dooku laughed, blushing.  
  
"I think about other stuff. Like, you know, art."  
  
Dooku laughed harder. "Yes, erotic art, seems to be the case lately."  
  
"Says the guy who writes smut."  
  
"You're a terrible influence."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
They laughed together, and spent a moment nuzzling, before Dooku kissed the tip of Sören's nose, stroking his face. His dark brown eyes were warm and almost liquid as he smiled at Sören and said, his voice husky, "I missed you."  
  
"I wasn't gone  _that_  long."  
  
Dooku gave him a long, weighted look, one that gave Sören chills, knowing there was depth to those words, something Dooku had seen, somehow; Sören thought of his own dreams, and the time he'd asked Dooku if he thought they'd had any past lives together and Dooku had answered in the affirmative.  
  
Then Dooku took his hands and pulled him towards the kitchen. "It's almost ready."


	38. Blood of Fire

**Blood of Fire**

 

On Thursday, after driving for close to six hours on the Ring Road from Akureyri down to Reykjavik, Sören pulled into Keflavik Airport, where his brother Dagnýr and brother-in-law Matt and their friend Brian Proust, one of Dagnýr's colleagues, were flying in from Toronto, and had requested to be met at the airport, since the last time Dagnýr had seen the family was at Christmas. Margrét, Frankie, Kol and Ari were also meeting them at the airport - a half-hour ago Sören had gotten a call on his cell from Margrét confirming that dinner reservations had been made at Fishmarket.  
  
Sören's phone went off again as he pulled his jeep into a parking stall. He recognized the cell number of María, one of his students, who was watching Snúdur and Auli. Sören had a moment of panic, hoping the animals were OK. He already missed Snúdur, even though it had been less than a day away from his cat; the cat was his baby.  
  
"Halló?" He spoke in Icelandic, even though his partners spoke English (or in Maglor's case, multiple languages) - it was just easier.  
  
"Sören, question - of the cans of food you gave me, which does Snúdur like the best? He's looking sad and I want to give him something good to eat."  
  
Sören laughed. "Awwwww, my poor little baby. Um... he likes them all? So it really doesn't matter."  
  
"Can you pick one?" María laughed nervously.  
  
"OK, go with the fish."  
  
"All right! Thanks, Sören, sorry to bother you. Have a good weekend!"  
  
"You too, and thank you again for watching the fur babies for me." When Sören hit End, he explained to Dooku and Maglor, "María wanted to know which variety of cat food to give Snúdur."  
  
Dooku facepalmed, chuckling. Then he looked at Maglor and said, "See, I told you Auli would be in good hands."  
  
"Oh  _god_ , María loves animals," Sören said. "I wouldn't entrust my child to just anyone, but I know for sure she'll take good care of him this weekend." Sören looked over his shoulder at Maglor. "It's gonna be tough for you to give Auli back in a few days, huh?"  
  
Maglor nodded solemnly. "Kind of wish we'd brought him for the trip."  
  
"It'll be OK. November isn't that far away and then you'll have a puppy, and I am very, very sure Vigdís and Páll will let you visit Auli in the meantime. In fact, I'm certain of it - they'll insist on having us over for dinner still when we get back, won't want us to be strangers after we move out of the neighborhood." Sören smiled, thinking fondly of them. "They have nice kids, too."  
  
And the thought of Sólveig and Sigurjón made Sören feel a little wistful as he got out of the jeep, once again feeling a mild sense of regret that he hadn't had children, and in all likelihood wouldn't be having them now with the turn his life was taking. Sólveig's strawberry blonde hair conjured up the memory of Claire, the English girl he'd met vacationing in Reykjavik when he was a young lad in his early twenties, the one girl he'd fallen for, and never acted on his feelings, and she was dead now; Sólveig looked like how their daughter would have looked if he'd told her how he felt and they'd started a relationship -  
  
_Cut that shit out._  
  
"Are you all right?" Maglor raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I'm fine."  
  
_If I have to ask you if you're fine, we know you're not fine,_  Maglor spoke into his mind.  
  
"I'll be fine," Sören said. "Let's get in... my brother should be touching down right about now." In the distance, there was the roar of an airplane landing.  
  
_  
  
As they made their way through the hustle and bustle of Keflavik Airport, which was surprisingly crowded on an early Thursday evening, and loud, with announcements made over the intercom in Icelandic and English, Maglor remarked to himself that one of Sören's most endearing qualities was his love for and loyalty to his family, as he could feel Sören's discomfort with the crowds and noise across their bond - it would have been easier for Sören to just meet Dagnýr at Fishmarket instead of here at the airport, especially after driving all day. But to Sören, eight months without seeing his twin brother might have well been an eternity, and they had to see each other  _now_.  
  
Maglor's eyes searched the airport - it had been years since he'd seen Dagnýr, but he never forgot a face. They were quickly approaching the baggage claim, where there would be no mistaking him. But before Maglor could see anything, he felt  _power_. He knew that both Dagnýr and his husband Matt were gifted in the same way Sören was, of course, and Margrét, Frankie, and Ari as well. Yet, he'd been around Sören's family in groups before, Christmases past usually, and when he and Sören lived together in Reykjavik they saw a lot of Margrét and Ari, and it did not feel like  _this_. He was either more sensitive to it now or there was something else altogether, some sort of  _bigger_ , not-quite-human presence at work...  
  
_...or two..._  
  
"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAG," came Sören's exuberant shout, and Maglor couldn't help grinning as he watched Sören break out into a giddy run, screaming "DAAAAAAAG, AAAAAAAAAA, BRÓÐIR MINN, BRÓÐIR MINN." He did a double-take as he watched Sören pounce on a tall man wearing a Hawaiian flower shirt and khaki shorts... who had spiky short platinum blonde hair, a very 1980s hairdo. He was used to Dagnýr Sigurdsson having short and slightly unruly dark hair that threatened to curl like Sören's if it grew out, so seeing him with white-blonde hair was startling.  
  
Sören and Dagnýr hugged each other tight, laughing and crying, rocking, and then Sören took his hands and began twirling Dagnýr around in circles. " _Bróðir minn, bróðir minn, litli bróðir minn, ég saknaði þín, ég saknaði þín!_ "  
  
Sören and Dagnýr were fraternal twins - Sören had dark eyes, full lips, bearded but still more pretty than handsome, with a smouldering look to him, and Dagnýr had grey eyes usually behind wire-rimmed glasses - he was wearing dark sunglasses today, pushing them up to the top of his head now that he was indoors - and more of a "boy next door" face, showing dimples when he smiled, clean-shaven. Dagnýr was younger than Sören by seven minutes, something Sören never let him forget, though Dagnýr looked the elder of the two. Dagnýr was with a man who looked like the now-jailed rock star Kylo Ren, but with shaggy dyed platinum hair and thick glasses, also wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. This had to be Matt.  
  
"Hello," Maglor said. He smiled at Dagnýr. "It's nice to see you again." Dagnýr gave him a wary look. He turned to Matt. "And it's nice to meet you... Matt?"  
  
"Hello there," a deep voice boomed out, and Maglor looked up at someone he hadn't seen in a good seventy years at least, long grey hair tied back in a low ponytail, and a grey beard, looking like an aged hippie, a jaunty "boonie hat" over his hair, wearing a heather-grey T-shirt and jeans like any ordinary summer tourist, except he very much was not.  
  
"Halló!" Sören grinned and put out his hand. "You must be Brian Proust, right?"  
  
"And you must be Sören." They shook hands. Dooku approached, reserved but not without warmth, and the two older gentlemen clasped hands then. "And Dooku." And then a look at Maglor. "And... Mark, is it?"  
  
Dagnýr raised an eyebrow.  
  
Maglor kept his expression deadpan. "Alejandro Magalhães."  
  
"Right." "Proust" nodded, the faintest touch of a smile on his lips. "No idea where I got Mark from, memory must be starting to fail me at this age."  _I see you're finally using something slightly more imaginative as an alias, Macalaurë. Good!_  
  
Maglor rolled his eyes.  _And you're..._  Brian.  _Really._  Really.  _Brian Proust._  
  
The Maia's eyes twinkled, accepting the challenge.  _It's better than_  Mark Lowry _for the last four hundred years, I daresay._    
  
_I used a couple other aliases. Like... Marcus Lauer when I lived in West Berlin and Amsterdam at the end of last century._  
  
_That's not better._  "I heard we had reservations at Fishmarket?" Proust raised his eyebrows at Sören.  
  
Sören nodded. "Jæja, and my sister is meeting us here..."  
  
"Omae wa mou shindeirou," came a deep woman's voice, as she grabbed Dagnýr by the waist from behind.  
  
"NANI?" Dagnýr yelled, before the woman - none other than Margrét - put him in a headlock and gave him a noogie. It was an amusing contrast, with Margrét wearing elegant gothic lolita and a small sparkly black fascinator on her head.  
  
Then Margrét spun him around and gave him a hug, the two of them rocking each other, which turned into Sören, Dagnýr, Margrét and Ari group-hugging, laughing and crying a little.  
  
And it was Sören's turn to double-take after that. Maglor had heard stories of the legendary Mary Frances "Frankie" O'Riordan, and there was a girl who was a foot shorter than Sören, whose cute doll face he recognized from the painting Sören had done, with piercing grey-blue eyes behind square black-framed glasses, stocky and busty with a nose ring, an eyebrow ring, and multiple rings in her ears, wearing a blue T-shirt that said "Ask Me About My Feminist Agenda" and black BDU pants, with black Doc Martens boots matching Sören's. There were tattoos swirling over her arms that reminded Maglor of Vanimórë's tattoos, but hers were flowered vines. Instead of the pink mohawk he'd been told about she now sported a pixie cut, with the flaming red hair of the Irish. Maglor found himself somewhat disappointed that he wasn't going to get to see the mohawk, remembering his days in 1980s West Berlin.  
  
"Frankie, what the sodding hell did you do to your hair?" Sören asked, narrowing his eyes.  
  
"I shoved it up your arse," Frankie teased, giving him a playful shove.  
  
"Ha. Ha ha." Sören affectionately tousled her hair.  
  
"I decided to be a little more 'traditional' for the wedding," Frankie said. "Putting on a fancy dress is a right fucking bitch to get over a mohawk."  
  
"I bet."  
  
"Plus..." Frankie put an arm around a man two feet taller than her, beautiful, with waist-length red hair and extraordinary bronze eyes, wearing jeans and a green T-shirt. "I was dyeing my hair all these years 'cos I was ashamed to be a ginger, but... Kol here helped me to love myself a little more."  
  
And that was where the other source of power came from.  _Interesting._  Maglor knew this "Kol" wasn't human... another Elf, perhaps? A Maia?  
  
"Good to see you again, Sören," Kol said, taking his hand. Then he turned to Dagnýr and Matt. "And to finally meet you, Matt, Dagnýr. I've heard so much about you."  
  
Dagnýr smirked. "Good things, I hope."  
  
"Mostly."  
  
Dagnýr laughed at that - his full-bodied laugh was one of the things he did, in fact, have in common with his twin brother. Sören grinned.  
  
"Right, where are my manners?" Margrét asked. "Everyone, this is my and Frankie's boyfriend, Kolgrímur Sólmundursson. Kol, this is... the fam. Some of them, anyway. Frankie's aunt Siobhan, and Leja, Hans, Qui, Obi, Gitta and Jane are all flying in from the UK tomorrow afternoon."  
  
"A pleasure," Kol said. "And I'm looking forward to meeting the others."  
  
" _Hvaða hluti af Íslandi ertu frá?_ " Dagnýr asked Kol, looking a little suspicious, and Maglor wondered if Dagnýr could also sense there was something unusual about Kol, even by this family's standards of unusual.  
  
" _Ég er ekki. Ég er frá Færeyjum,_ " Kol replied.  
  
_Thou art as much from the Faroe Islands as I am from Brazil._  But Maglor kept that thought to himself.  
  
"Ah, Faroese, I see," Dagnýr said, returning to English, nodding, though his tone suggested he wasn't entirely convinced. "I thought the accent was a little strange."  
  
Kol also nodded. "Should we get a move on? We don't want to be late for our reservation and there will be traffic in Reykjavik about now."  
  
"Jæja, in a minute," Sören said. "I need more hugs." He started with Frankie, squeezing her tight, leaning down to rub his nose in her hair and rain kisses over the top of her head. If Maglor didn't know better, he would have sworn the two were lovers. Sören kissed the tip of Frankie's nose, and she playfully grabbed his ass, which led to him smacking her bottom, then Frankie shoved him and got on her tiptoes to tweak his nose. "I've missed you so much," Sören husked as he pet her hair some more.   
  
"I miss you too, you cunt. You could call or chat with me more often, you know."  
  
"Jæja, I know, I just... have been busy lately."  
  
"I bet, you fucking pervert." Frankie cackled.  
  
Sören hugged Margrét, Frankie, and Kol together, then he hugged Dagnýr and Matt together, and at last he hugged Ari. He whispered something in Ari's ear in Icelandic, and Ari gave him an innocent face that wasn't innocent at all, which seemed to be hard-wired into their genes. Sören glared at him, wagging his finger, and Ari continued smiling, his eyes slightly closed.  
  
Then the tall man with blonde-brown hair - which had been nape-length last time Maglor saw him, and was short now - and a full beard, blue eyes, muscular built wearing a blue T-shirt and dark blue jeans, not the sort of person you'd expect to be working as a yoga instructor and Reiki Master for a living, turned to Maglor and said quietly, "It's nice to see you again."  _Grandfather,_  he spoke into Maglor's mind directly.  
  
Maglor felt himself choke up a little, but maintained his composure. "It's good to see you too, Ari."  _Estel._  He patted Ari's shoulder. "I hope all is going well."  
  
Ari nodded. "More or less."  _Hopefully better now that you've all got things sorted out?_  
  
_Not... entirely._  Maglor assumed Ari knew who Sören was, and if he didn't know, he'd know very soon.  
  
Ari raised an eyebrow, but wisely said nothing. "All right," he said, as Margrét started dragging him off. "We'll see you all shortly."  
  
After they were seated at Fishmarket, and going over the menu, their waiter came back with water and cleared his throat.  
  
"We're not quite ready to order yet," Dooku told him.  
  
"Jæja," the waiter said, nodding. "I just wanted to inform you that... you can order whatever you want on the menu and it's already been paid for."  
  
Margrét put her menu on the table and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms. "Who the hell...?"  
  
"We were paid in advance by Apollyon Enterprises," the waiter said. "There was more than enough for you to get anything, so... enjoy."  
  
Margrét and Dagnýr both gave Sören a look. Sören shrugged. "I didn't tell Van to do that," Sören said.  
  
"No one tells Van to do or not do anything," Maglor muttered, pouring himself a glass of water.  
  
Dagnýr's eyebrow went up at that, remembering that Maglor and Vanimórë had been sharing the cottage in Svalbarðseyri until recently. "Sounds like you have a few stories to tell."  
  
Maglor said nothing, but calmly sipped his water.  
  
When the waiter came back, everyone was ready to order. Matt gave Sören a horrified look for ordering puffin.  
  
"You can't eat puffin!" Matt said after the waiter left.  
  
"What do you mean, I can't eat them?" Sören narrowed his eyes. "It's a food, isn't it?"  
  
"You... have you seen puffins?" Matt's eyes widened.  
  
"Of course I've fucking seen puffins, where do you think I'm from, Valinor?"  
  
Maglor's water went down the wrong pipe and he made an inhuman noise. Proust whacked him on the back.  
  
"Here," Sören said, "I can make this even worse." He reached into his satchel.  
  
"Oh no," Dooku said, his eyes widening with alarm. "Oh no.  _No._  You didn't."  
  
Sören took out a visor-hat with a stuffed puffin on it and put it on his head just as Maglor made the mistake of taking another sip of water to soothe his irritated throat; Maglor ended up spitting it out.  
  
_Fëanor, the Flame Imperishable, is wearing a puffin hat on his head._  
  
_Yes he is,_  Proust spoke into his mind, hearing that thought.  _Such a character._  "I like your hat," Proust said.  
  
" _Takk._ " Sören smiled and reached into his satchel again, and before Maglor knew what was happening, Sören slammed a visor-hat onto his head.  
  
"Oh no, Sören, what..." Maglor gave him a look. "Don't tell me I have a puffin on my head too."  
  
"No, you've got a whale on your head." Sören pulled out his cell phone and snapped a quick selfie of the two of them together, with Maglor looking stunned in the first photo, and annoyed in the second one, Sören grinning in both pictures.  
  
"That's a good look for you," Proust said to Maglor, nodding sagely.  
  
Ari was trying very hard not to laugh, and failing. Dooku was red with silent laughter, and Maglor wished for a moment he'd been sitting across from Dooku instead of Sören sitting between them, so he could kick Dooku under the table. Then Dooku used the Force to poke Maglor in the back without touching him, innocently glancing off to the side.  
  
_Our husband is an idiot,_  Dooku spoke into his mind,  _but he's our idiot._  
  
_Yes, he is._  Maglor couldn't even be fully annoyed, when Sören leaned in to give him a little kiss and he felt that warm glow of happiness that he had Sören again, he had his Ada back.  
  
Then he realized Dooku had called Sören  _our husband_ , and Maglor had gone with it, not correcting him. It felt right. Polygamy might not be legal, but Maglor's identities weren't legal to begin with.  
  
Sören kept the puffin hat on his head for the entire meal, and Maglor found himself keeping the whale hat on as well, even though he felt ridiculous, and the sly glances from Proust every now and again didn't help. The dinner conversation was mostly about Margrét, Kol and Frankie looking for a house to rent in Reykjavik, and how Dagnýr's surrogate's pregnancy was coming along, perfectly mundane subjects, except Maglor knew this family was anything but normal and the feeling of tension in anticipation of Olórin revealing to Sören the truth of what he was, made Maglor feel like he was being wound tight enough to snap. As Dagnýr and Matt were teasingly arguing about baby names, Maglor finally poked Proust under the table, speaking directly into his mind.  
  
_When._  
  
Proust glanced over his ginger ale, raising his eyebrows slightly.  _When what._  
  
_You know perfectly damn well what._  Maglor inclined his head toward Sören, who tilted his head over and they nuzzled; Maglor noticed a wistful look in Sören's eyes as he turned his head back to his brother, discussing children.  _When are you telling him._  
  
_Tomorrow night._  Proust sipped his ginger ale.  
  
_Not tonight?_  
  
_Not tonight. He had a six-hour drive to come here, and he should relax tonight. What I tell him is going to be difficult enough without him being wound up from being on the road all day and being in crowds of people the last two hours._  
  
Maglor couldn't fault him for that.  
  
_Besides..._  Proust looked directly at him now.  _He's not the only person I need to speak with about the past._  
  
Maglor looked at Dagnýr, just as Dagnýr said, completely deadpan, "How about the name... Osti?"  
  
Sören howled, clapping.  
  
" _You are not naming our child Cheese,_ " Matt hissed.  
  
"Listen," Sören said, "Osti would be a great name for someone with this bloodline. We are the blood of cheese."  
  
_You see why I had to help them,_  Proust said, smiling fondly.  _Had to help_  you.  
  
_I still can't believe you turned against the Valar._  
  
_There are things... you don't know. Tomorrow._  Proust's eyes met his, before looking back at his plate.  _But I did what I had to do. These are dark times, and you and your kin are the blood of fire._  A small smile.  _The blood of cheese._  
  
_My Ada, the Cheese Imperishable._  
  
_Exactly._  
  
Maglor snorted into his drink; Dagnýr gave him a peculiar look.  
  
_That one knows something,_  Proust said.  _He doesn't know_  what,  _but he's suspicious._  
  
_I can tell._  
  
_He's a scientist. His job is literally to observe and make connections with what he observes. So you may want to exercise caution around Finrod... er, Dagnýr... until tomorrow night when I think it's a better time to discuss things._  
  
_All right._  Maglor worked on his salmon.  
  
After dinner, and those who wanted dessert had dessert, the group got up from their table. Sören still insisted on tipping their waiter, even though the waiter had assured them the cost of their meal included a substantial tip.  
  
"No," Sören said, "listen, I worked as a waiter and a barista for years, let me pay you."  
  
The entire family then chipped in, Maglor included; Maglor felt a warm glow of admiration for Sören's heart, and the way he still showed kindness and open-handedness to others even with all the cruelty he'd endured in his life.  
  
Maglor took the wheel of the jeep to drive to the hotel - and took off the whale hat, finally, putting it back in Sören's satchel. They arrived at the desk at the same time as Dagnýr and Matt, and Proust; Dagnýr and Matt would be in a separate room from Proust. Proust let the husbands go ahead of him, and when Dagnýr produced his credit card, the woman at the desk told him, "Your room's been paid for, sir."  
  
Dagnýr folded his arms. He looked at Sören over his shoulder, and then back at the receptionist. "Let me guess... Apollyon..."  
  
"...Enterprises, yes. Friend of yours?"  
  
"Er."  
  
The rooms of Brian Proust and the suite for Sören, Maglor and Dooku had been paid for by Apollyon Enterprises as well. In addition, Sören, Maglor, and Dooku's suite had been upgraded to a penthouse. Sören let out a low whistle. "The fuck," he said.  
  
Having lived so long abroad, Dagnýr's accent was almost perfect Canadian English, with barely any indicator that Icelandic had been his native language except for the faintest touch - still speaking on the in-breath - but now the accent crept into his speech, indicating he was caught off-guard, clearly emotionally affected by this display. "I know money is like water for your 'friend'," Dagnýr said, making air quotes, "but I think I need to have a little talk with him tomorrow about... this... because I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this kind of generosity from someone I don't even know."  
  
"Don't try to argue with him," Maglor said.  
  
Dagnýr raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Just... roll with it." Maglor patted his shoulder. "Enjoy it, while it lasts." He decided against telling Dagnýr that Van would be leaving in the not-too-distant future, though he expected Apollyon Enterprises would continue doing business.  
  
Unfortunately even that little drop of "while it lasts" proved to be too much, and Dagnýr gave him a look, opening his mouth.   
  
Suddenly, Proust pointed out the window. "Oh, look!" his voice rang out. "Eagles!"  
  
A pair of white-tailed eagles soared past the plate glass window of the hotel lobby, and Proust watched them, smiling.  
  
Maglor choked back a laugh.  _Nice save._  
  
_Not bad in a pinch, I daresay._  
  
"Ho-lee  _shiiiiit_ ," Dagnýr said, watching the birds circle. "That is amazing."  
  
"Amaze _balls_ , even," Matt said.  
  
"Yes, that is  _amazeballs_ ," Dagnýr said.  
  
Sören and Dooku were watching the display too, holding hands.  
  
"It's really something," Dagnýr said. "Not just that the birds are majestic in and of themselves, but they almost went extinct in the 20th century, and in the last couple years the white-tailed eagle population boomed to new record numbers, stronger than they were since before they almost died out."  
  
"That is quite remarkable indeed," Proust said, nodding. "The eagles are a testament to the resilience of forces of nature... it has a way of course-correcting itself, despite interference, despite being hunted to near-extinction. It's like a wildfire, once it starts burning again there's no stopping it." His eyes met Maglor's.  
  
"Like a phoenix," Sören said, eyes wide and filled with near-worship as he looked at the eagles, and Maglor could  _almost_  see the vision in Sören's mind's eye. He took Sören's other hand, feeling choked up again.  
  
Margrét, Frankie, Kol and Ari were at the desk now, also being informed their rooms had been paid for, and that Margrét, Frankie and Kol's suite was being upgraded to a penthouse suite as well.  
  
"The fuck is with your posh friend spending a shit ton of money on us?" Frankie laughed.  
  
Sören shrugged. "I guess he wanted to make a good impression...?"  
  
Margrét snorted. "I can't say as I blame him, considering he associates with, you know." Margrét's head inclined towards Maglor.  
  
"We're good now," Sören said, a little defensively. "Actually... we have a place in Akureyri, that we'll be starting to move into next week. We were gonna invite you guys to come up and visit when we're all settled in."  
  
"The three of you?" Margrét raised an eyebrow. She gave Maglor a look. "You're not gonna run off again?"  
  
"No ma'am," Maglor said.  
  
And there was suspicious Dagnýr once again. "So hey, would you like to join me and Matt for some drinks at the hotel bar?" he asked. "We can talk a little, maybe -"  
  
Taking Proust's word of caution to heart, Maglor made an exaggerated yawn. "We've been on the road all day and I think maybe we should unwind...?" He looked at Sören and yawned again.  
  
The wicked look in Sören's eyes suggested he took the mock yawning as an invite to go to bed... not for sleep... and with a little smirk, Sören said, "Yeah, we're really, um,  _tired._  I bet we have a nice comfy bed in that posh suite of ours and it's calling us." He waggled his eyebrows.  
  
"Oh my god, you fucking perverts," Margrét said, shaking with silent laughter. She gave her brother a shove. "I'd tell you to 'get a room', but..."  
  
"That's exactly what we're doing," Sören said, putting an arm around Maglor's waist. He turned back to his brother. "We can catch up tomorrow night, maybe?" He looked at his sister. "You're still having a party...?"  
  
"Family only, yeah, so my punk friends aren't coming, but all of you are invited, and the folks from the UK. Brian, you can come too if you want," Margrét said, "since Dag thinks of you as being like his dad."  
  
Proust smiled at Dagnýr, who blushed. "It's true," Dagnýr said.  
  
"But yeah tomorrow," Margrét said, "7 PM. We might as well have it in my penthouse suite, that'll be big enough for everyone."  
  
"Sounds good," Dagnýr said. "I think I'll go for a swim in the hotel pool, then."  
  
"Me too," Ari said.  
  
Sören and Margrét took turns hugging Dagnýr and Ari, everyone bid goodnight to Proust, and then Sören, Dooku, Maglor, Margrét, Frankie and Kol walked from the lobby to the elevator, riding up together since their suites were one floor apart. Sören closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths - Maglor knew Sören was claustrophobic, especially in elevators, and he reached out to take Sören's hand, squeezing and stroking reassuringly. He noticed Dooku took Sören's other hand, no doubt also familiar with Sören's responses by now.  
  
The elevator chimed when Sören, Dooku, and Maglor's floor approached. Sören lingered for a moment, even though Maglor could feel how eager he was to get out of the confining space - once again, a testament to how much he cared about his family. Sören reached out to hug Margrét, and gave Frankie a big squeezy hug.  
  
"God, I missed you," Sören told her. "Maybe tomorrow afternoon we can hang out some, já?"  
  
"I'd like that," Frankie said.  
  
Dooku waved. "It was lovely to see you all again."  
  
" _Takk_ , same here," Margrét told him, clasping his hand in hers, and then Frankie gave him a hug too.  
  
"It was nice to see you again, Margrét," Maglor said. He turned to Frankie. "And a pleasure meeting you." He didn't know what to make of Kol.  
  
Just as he stepped out of the elevator out of the elevator, Frankie said, "Hey, Alejandro?"  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"I have something for you."  
  
Before Maglor could take another step, Frankie also stepped out of the elevator, took a flying leap, and decked him, hard enough to drop Maglor to his knees. Then she grinned, getting back in the elevator, doors closing behind her.  
  
  
_  
  
"I shouldn't be laughing," Sören said, holding ice wrapped in a washcloth to Maglor's face.  
  
"I shouldn't either." Dooku patted Maglor's shoulder. "She hit me too, though mine was in the gut."  
  
"You weren't exaggerating about that right hook," Maglor said. " _Hells._ "  
  
"I'm sorry?" Sören took a swig of Sprite - the fridge in their suite was well-stocked.  
  
Maglor shook his head. "I'm just glad you had someone like that looking out for you in London... considering." He felt himself seething again, thinking of that filth Justin. Frankie showed tremendous courage, beating him up when he would have forced himself on Sören again.  
  
"She had kind of a mess to clean up after Nico and I split up, because I was grieving him and I was still grieving you. It scared the shit out of her. I can't blame her for being angry," Sören said.  
  
"Neither can I." Maglor took Sören's free hand. "You don't know how much I -"  
  
Sören leaned in and silenced him with a soft, gentle kiss. "Shhhhh. That's all in the past now,  _elskan._ "  
  
_Is it?_  As much as Maglor was feeling an almost unbearable amount of tension waiting for the party at Margrét's tomorrow, where Olórin would finally show Sören who and what he was, there was an equal sense of dread, considering he'd rejected Fëanor to marry Fanari, had broken his father's heart, and Fëanor had died before he'd gotten a chance to make things right... then in 2014, he made the excuse of an "arranged marriage" to leave Sören. He wondered how Sören would take it, once he had been awoken to the  _full_  truth.  
  
"God, look at this suite," Sören said, walking around. "What a gorgeous view of the city."  
  
The way Sören said "city" in his accent -  _see-tee_  - always made Maglor smile.  
  
"And everything in the suite." Sören gestured to the king-sized four-poster bed. He walked in the bathroom. "Shit, there's a hot tub in here."  
  
"Fully stocked bar," Dooku said. "Not just all the food and drinks in the fridge, but we've got quite a selection of alcohol here."  
  
"Well..." Sören came out of the bathroom. "If none of us are going back out on the road tonight, maybe we can have a drink and um, relax in the hot tub?"  
  
"Sounds good to me," Maglor said.  
  
They had a glass of Auchentoshan, Sören's with ice, the other two men taking theirs neat. Sören kept looking at the bed, and then back at Maglor, and Maglor knew he was thinking of sex, but then he realized Sören was also thinking of the last time they'd been in a hotel room together... not just the threesome with Vanimórë, though that too... but their trip to Rio in 2014, just before they had broken up.  
  
"I know I said just now that all of that was in the past, but I can't help thinking of when we were in Rio," Sören started, swirling the whisky around in his glass.  
  
_Oh shit._  Maglor took a deep breath and braced himself.  
  
"You had us get a room with two separate beds, even though we shared one, saying it was to keep up appearances. I know now that thing with your 'family' was bullshit, and it seemed like a lot of trouble to go to for all of that," Sören said.  
  
"It wasn't just because of that, actually," Maglor said. "You remember when I told you that I paid dangerous people very well to help me move around without being caught? When I was in Rio, the times I went off on my own supposedly meeting my 'family'... I was meeting those people. And as far as being cautious about any kind of public acknowledgment of you, I had real concerns that if one of my associates back then wanted to extort me, they would use you to do so. They would be less likely to do anything to you if they didn't know you were my partner." He was telling the truth.  
  
Sören frowned into his whisky. "And... now?"  
  
"I have different associates," Maglor said. "I change handlers every time I move. This is a less unsavory group of people."  
  
"What happens to the old associates, once you get new ones?"  
  
"They are paid to keep their silence," Maglor said, "and I pay to have them monitored to make sure they are upholding their end of the bargain."  
  
"And if not...?"  
  
Maglor's eyes met Sören's. "Then I pay to make them disappear. On occasion, I have done it myself, depending on the severity of what was said and done. But that has not been necessary in four decades."  
  
"You were turned in to the US government...?"  
  
"Yes. When I escaped from captivity, there was... a bit of a reckoning." Maglor finished his shot glass and poured himself another. "I'm a killer, I have killed many times over the length of my lifetime, and over the course of our travels together I will probably have to do it at least once more."  
  
Sören paused, considering. Then he said, "Hi a killer -"  
  
Maglor facepalmed, and felt himself start to laugh and cry at the same time, feeling a mad sense of relief that Sören had made such a... well,  _Sören_  response... rather than judging him, rejecting him for the blood on his hands.  
  
Sören took Maglor's bad hand, and Dooku took the other hand. A few moments of silence passed.  
  
Dooku broke the silence. "Some years ago, I had a friend, named Sayyid-Diya. We had become friends at university, he was an immigrant from the old Iran, when it was still Persia, when it was still a secular country. His son moved to New York and worked at the Twin Towers, and was working there when 9/11 happened, died in the attack. Sayyid-Diya and I had a falling out because he thought that people like me, like him, with the Force..." Dooku used the Force to pour himself another glass of whisky, and move the glass over without touching it. "Should come forward, register ourselves with the government. He thought it would have prevented 9/11, if people like us had been put to work fighting crime, fighting terrorism. I disagreed. I told him that we would still be outnumbered, overpowered, we would be signing our own death warrants and that of our families. I'd heard about government experiments during the 1970s." Dooku's eyes met Maglor's. "I can't exactly blame you for doing what you've needed to do to survive, I can only imagine what you went through."  
  
"It was worse than what you can imagine," Maglor said. "The people who get into that kind of work conducting 'research'... they have the stomach to handle committing acts of barbarity that normal, good, decent human beings would not tolerate, would try to stop. The United States had its very own set of Nazi doctors. I will do whatever it takes to not go through that again, by any means necessary. I will do whatever it takes to protect the both of you. I would kill for either of you, both of you." Maglor polished off his next glass of whisky. "I already have." He thought of Justin again.  
  
Sören stood up. Still holding Maglor's hand, he pulled, and Maglor rose to his feet, Dooku with him. "Let's try out the hot tub," Sören said. "I need to destress a bit."  
  
With that, Sören used the Force to turn on the stereo in the suite, putting on the R&B station. He began undressing right then and there, and turned it into a bit of a striptease, dancing around as he took his clothes off. Maglor couldn't help grinning at Sören's antics.  _Don't ever change. Don't lose that sunshine in your spirit._  He still worried that dragging Sören around with him over the decades would embitter him.  
  
His worries melted away for awhile with the heat and bubbles in the hot tub, looking at Sören and Dooku both naked in there with him. Sören sighed and sank down in the tub, until he was only visible from the shoulders up. "This is nice," he purred.  
  
"This is very nice," Dooku said. "I wonder how much it would cost to get one of these installed in our new home."  
  
Sören grinned. "Oooh, I like that idea."  
  
Maglor reached under the water and began massaging Sören's feet, smiling at the look of bliss on Sören's face, the little contented noises he made, flexing his toes. "I like the idea of us spoiling ourselves a little," Maglor said. "We've all had difficult lives, we should start making up for that."  
  
"Yes." Sören nodded emphatically. "Yes, we should." His eyes met Maglor's. "And I like that you're talking about this, that you're... starting to let yourself live, again."  
  
"I suppose you're right." Maglor rubbed Sören's foot harder. "I like that too."  
  
"You know what I like even more?"  
  
Maglor raised an eyebrow.  
  
Sören splashed him.  
  
"Oh god." Dooku laughed.  
  
"Could you not encourage him?" Maglor made a wet cat face.  
  
"Does he need encouraging?" Dooku laughed even harder.  
  
Maglor narrowed his eyes. "You know what?"  
  
"What."  
  
Maglor splashed Dooku.  
  
Sören threw back his head and laughed, his laughter echoing in the bathroom. Dooku splashed both of them, and that became a splash war, until Sören decided to start tickling Dooku and climbed on top of him to do so, and Dooku at last seized Sören's hands and pinned his wrists against the wall, leaning up to kiss him hard. Maglor made a groan of approval, hardening at the sight of them.  
  
When they pulled apart, breathing hard, Sören husked, "I think we better..."  
  
"Yes." Dooku kissed him again. "But first..." He splashed Sören wildly.  
  
"You thot," Sören said, giggling, splashing him back.  
  
Maglor splashed both of them. "All right, children."  
  
"He started it," Sören said.  
  
"No, you," Dooku said.  
  
"No, you."  
  
"No, you."  
  
"No, you."  
  
"No, you."  
  
"No, you."  
  
" _God,_  it's like the two of you are siblings," Maglor yelled.  _Which of course, is exactly because the two of thou art siblings._  
  
The three headed to the bed, after shutting off the hot tub. Maglor resumed rubbing Sören's feet, since it was helping to relax him, and eventually Sören rolled over on his back and Maglor began to rub Sören's back, fingers lovingly tracing the scars on his back, the outline of the phoenixes, wanting Sören to feel the love in his touch. As he worked on Sören's back, Dooku got behind him and began to rub his shoulders, and Maglor made a little purring noise, melting into the touch, even more when Dooku rubbed his scalp, and started brushing his hair. After awhile Dooku tilted Maglor's face to his and kissed him, and one hand reached around to stroke Maglor's cock while the other hand continued brushing his hair. Dooku kissed Maglor's neck, and shoulder, and he nibbled and sucked on the pointy tip of Maglor's ear.  
  
Sören rolled over and Maglor rubbed his chest and stomach, and Sören moaned as he watched Dooku and Maglor kissing some more. "The two of you are so fucking  _hot_  together," Sören said. "It should be illegal."  
  
Maglor leaned down and kissed Sören, and now it was Dooku's turn to make a noise, and he ground out, "I don't know, I think that's even more illegal."  
  
Sören grinned at Dooku before kissing Maglor harder, taking their cocks into his fist and stroking them slowly.  
  
Dooku came down and kissed each of them in turn, Sören then Maglor, then Sören and Maglor kissed again, and for the next while the three just took turns kissing each other, running their hands over each other, getting more and more worked up. At last Sören shoved Maglor onto his back and held him down with one hand, which made Maglor already start arching to him, panting for him, loving it when Sören's aggressive side came out. He bucked and moaned when Sören and Dooku kissed and licked his neck, on either side of them, and his moans got even louder, worryingly loud when Sören and Dooku licked and sucked his nipples at the same time.  
  
They kissed, licked, and nibbled him all over, from his chest down his calves and back again, fingers walking and brushing in the wake of their lips and tongues. Maglor felt as sensitized as he ever had been, trembling, absolutely  _aching_  for both of them. When Dooku took him into his mouth and Sören slipped his tongue inside him, tongue swirling in lazy circles just right on his prostate, Maglor felt like he could cry, remembering Fingolfin and Fëanor doing exactly this to him, long ago.   
  
He took each of their hands. He was already so close...  
  
Just before he could come, they stopped. Which was, too, as they were long ago - they loved teasing him, and being teased. Their lovemaking could and did last for hours, with all the teasing. Sören took a few playful licks at the head of Maglor's cock, lapping precum, before he came up to kiss him, and Maglor felt Sören's own urgent erection rubbing against his thigh.  
  
"Hmm, what shall we do with this Elf?" Sören asked Dooku.  
  
"What shan't we do with this Elf?" Dooku's fingers played over Maglor's chest before a finger stroked Maglor's chin and Dooku's mouth claimed his.  
  
"Well, you know. Only so much we can do in one night," Sören said, leaning down to lap a nipple, and tug between his teeth; Maglor cried out. Sören's fingers walked down to Maglor's cock, and the thumb rubbed the frenulum as his index finger rubbed the slit. "I think I want this cock of his." He nuzzled Maglor and kissed him again. Then he leaned over Maglor to kiss Dooku. "Maybe you fuck him as he fucks me? If you have no objection, that is," Sören said, stroking Maglor's face, looking into his eyes.  
  
"None whatsoever," Maglor said. "But I know I'm already ready... we need to get you ready, Sören." He almost let  _Ada_  slip instead of "Sören". The heat in Sören's eyes wasn't helping with that.  
  
With that, Maglor feasted on him, tongue in Sören's passage, eating him hungrily, as Sören and Dooku kissed and caressed each other, Sören stroking his and Dooku's cocks together in his fist. Maglor remembered how many times he had tasted his father this way, and he could almost come untouched just thinking of it, but he saved the unloading to be inside him.  
  
When Sören was ready, and well-lubricated, Maglor slipped into him, letting out a deep sigh of contentment as he bottomed out, feeling Sören's passage embracing him, like he was coming home. Every bone in his body ached, every nerve in his body sang for Sören to know who he was, to  _remember_. He almost cried as he kissed Sören, taking his hands as he took his first few slow, gentle thrusts.  _Soon._  
  
Dooku took him from behind, tilting his face so they could kiss, and then Dooku kissed, licked and nibbled his neck, nape and shoulder, his hands reaching around to caress Maglor's chest, play with the nipples. Sören moaned, arching, rolling his hips to urge Maglor on a little harder and faster; Maglor could feel his excitement at watching them across their bond, just the same way Fëanor had been so aroused by him and Fingolfin.  
  
But despite Sören wanting it harder and faster, Maglor kept it slow for awhile, savoring the sweet connection between them, feeling perfectly at peace, like he was, finally, right where he belonged. "I love you," Maglor heard himself rasp, kissing Sören, kissing Dooku. "I love you, both of you. I love you so much..."  _I've missed thee so much._  
  
"We love you." Sören was holding both their hands in his, and squeezed. "Your home is with us now."  
  
And then, Sören slipped his hands out, and Maglor watched as Sören touched himself, with that delicious crinkle of his nose and bite of his lower lip. Maglor shuddered, not able to help himself from picking up the pace, just a little, enough that Sören let out a moan and matched his rhythm. "Yes," Sören panted. "Like that..."  
  
Sören was leaking a tremendous amount of precum, and when he stuck his slick fingers in Maglor's mouth and he could taste the sweetness, Maglor drove into him even harder, not as hard as he could, but enough that Sören let out a wild cry. Sören then stuck his precum-soaked fingers in Dooku's mouth, and now Dooku was driving into him with abandon, and Maglor pounded Sören into the mattress the same way he was being fucked, giving in to his passion, his  _need_  for both of them, savage.  
  
"Yes, yes,  _yes._ " Sören grabbed his hips, white-knuckled.  
  
It was fast and furious, and when the three of them climaxed together, it was shattering, glorious, like nothing else in the universe existed except their heat, their light, their love. Maglor's face was buried in Sören's chest, Dooku covering his back, trembling between them, held  _safe_. It was almost unreal, but it was very real, and it was almost terrifying in its immanence, they were  _here_ , the three had found their way to each other again.  
  
_Soon._  
  
Sören was already ready for another round. Dooku would need time to recharge, but Sören and Maglor had no problem with helping him do that - now it was Dooku's turn to be worshiped, kissed and caressed all over, until he was hard again, all the more as Sören teased him, mischief in his eyes.  
  
Maglor watched as Sören lay on top of Dooku, his back to Dooku's chest, and took his cock. Dooku groaned as he bottomed out in Sören, and just held him for a minute, tilting Sören's face to kiss him deeply. Then Maglor approached, straddling Sören's hips, and Dooku guided Sören's cock to Maglor's entrance. Maglor sank down, stroking Sören's face and watching his eyes as Sören claimed him, filled him. When Sören was all the way inside, Maglor leaned down to kiss him, and shivered as he felt Sören's arms wrap around him.  
  
"I love you, Ada." The word slipped out.  
  
"I love you,  _elskan._ " Sören stroked his face, and kissed him again.  
  
Maglor rode him slowly, as Sören slowly rode Dooku. All sense of time and place slipped away and it was only the three of them, only passion, only ecstasy.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören dozed off after sex, as he did, and when he came to awhile later and went to the bathroom, he came back and Maglor and Dooku were still sleeping, tangled up together like a pair of cats. Sören smiled at the sight of them.  
  
He felt more awake now, and that familiar restless feeling, that the creative fire in him had been fed by the fire of passion. He used the Force to retrieve his satchel, and pulled out his sketchbook and oil pastels. He'd decided to finish the portrait of Margrét, Frankie and Kol that was meant to be a gift for Margrét and Frankie's wedding, by using oil pastels, rather than reproduce the sketch on canvas and paint it. So that was what he did in the wee hours, following the lines of his sketch, smudging and blending colors, starting with the trio themselves.  
  
Before he got to work on the background, he thought of the twin eagles that had been soaring past the hotel, the light of the sun brilliant in their feathers. Above them he drew an eagle and it became a firebird, but unlike the orange-red phoenix and its blue ocean counterpart on his back, this one was gold, a golden eagle, burning with the fire of the sun. The heat of day always bothered Sören, who ran naturally hot like a living furnace, but he loved the sunsets and sunrises, and around the trio his pastels danced in the riotous blaze of a rising sun, fire in the sky.  
  
When the pastel painting was finished to his satisfaction, he washed his hands, climbed back in bed - it was early morning now - and went back to sleep.  
  
Maglor and Dooku let him sleep in - he was woken up by his phone, Frankie calling his cell at one in the afternoon.  
  
Sören made a noise into the phone as he answered, instead of the proper "hello".  
  
"Did I wake you?" Frankie asked.  
  
Sören made another noise.  
  
"Well, you said we should hang out today, you cunt, so... it's today."  
  
"God." Sören yawned and stretched. "OK, lemme put some clothes on... you still in the hotel?"  
  
"I'm at the pool. You want to go for a swim first, then we can decide what we're doing?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
Sören got out of bed; Maglor and Dooku left a note saying they were shopping in Reykjavik and would be back at the suite at 5 and they could decide on dinner. That gave him four hours with his best friend, which was fine. Sören got changed into swim trunks and a T-shirt. He took deep breaths going down in the elevator, wanting to scream, not wanting to make a scene. He was shaking by the time he got out on the ground floor, and had to pause for a minute to continue to collect himself.  
  
Frankie was in the pool already, in a black-and-hot-pink two-piece bikini. Sören had never seen Frankie in swimwear before, though he had seen her in underwear when they lived together. Frankie was self-conscious about her weight, being plus size, and back in London hadn't, as a rule, shown off her body like this. It was good to see her finally have more confidence in herself. Sören had never found her unattractive, just the opposite.  
  
He found himself ever so slightly open-mouthed now, watching her, all curves, and flowering vine tattoos swirling over her arms, thighs, and legs, leading to a Tree of Life on her back and a large flaming star on the back of her neck.   
  
Frankie put her fingers in her mouth and whistled. "Sören! Get your arse over here."  
  
Sören stripped down, and began to walk down the steps of the pool, going in one part at a time - feet, ankles, calves, thighs, waist, getting adjusted to the water temperature. Finally Frankie waded over to him and pulled him in, making him laugh and gasp at the shock of the water.  
  
"This is nice, innit?" Frankie asked.  
  
Sören nodded. "If you like this, and you come up to Akureyri to see our new place, I can take you to the Nature Baths at Mývatn. It's naturally heated. Though you have to get naked in the shower first to go in."  
  
"Oh boy." Frankie blushed. "I'm still getting used to, you know... this." She gestured to herself.  
  
"You look good," Sören said sincerely.  
  
"You're just saying that."  
  
Sören narrowed his eyes. "No, I'm not." He tousled her hair again, thinking the pixie cut and her natural red color looked adorable on her. "I still can't get over your hair, Jesus Christ."  
  
"It's still a shock to me too, I look in the mirror like  _Who is this person_? But I don't hate it."  
  
"No, it's..." Sören swallowed hard, taking it in. He thought about how he reacted to Claire when he met her in Reykjavik sixteen years ago. "Your hair makes your eyes really pop." Especially with her glasses off, they were more noticeable now: big, long-lashed, a beautiful silver-blue color.  
  
"That sounds so gay, Sören."  
  
"You look  _fabulous_ , yas, honey."  
  
Frankie laughed so hard she snorted. "God, I fucking missed you."  
  
"I know." Sören hugged her. "I missed you too."  
  
They waded around. Frankie went over to where she had two glasses of champagne parked by the ledge of the pool, and handed one to Sören. "I feel so fucking posh right now," she said. "That penthouse suite upstairs, it has a  _hot tub_."  
  
" _Yes._ " Sören grinned, sipping his champagne. "We tried it out last night."  
  
"I'm sure you did." Frankie rolled her eyes but grinned back. "Sören, I've never even been in a hot tub before last night. It was fucking  _awesome_. I feel so spoiled."  
  
"You deserve to be spoiled a bit," Sören said. "When we were living in London, I often wished I had money so I could take us on holiday."  
  
"Awww." Frankie pouted. "You're so sweet, you're gonna give me diabetes."  
  
"I've been told I taste pretty sweet too."  
  
Frankie almost spat her champagne, and she smacked Sören's chest as he laughed. He noticed she blushed. "Thanks for sharing," she said.  
  
"Well technically I haven't  _shared_  -"  
  
"Wow, Sören." Frankie's blush deepened, and Sören felt himself blushing too, as his mind briefly played the mental image of Frankie with his cock between her generous breasts, the tip in her mouth.  _OK, stop that_.   
  
He'd seen her breasts before, too. Her nipples were pierced, like his - they'd bonded over body modification, among other things. He couldn't help noticing her nipples were hard in her bikini, and the outline of the rings. He wondered for an instant if hers were as sensitive as his.  
  
_OK no, stop. Chill._  
  
"Is Alejandro pissed that I punched him?" Frankie's voice cut into his thoughts. "Are you?"  
  
"He's not really pissed, no. He probably has a bruise on the side of his face now, but... he's more impressed with you than angry. He's glad you beat up Justin."  
  
"I'd beat him up again." Frankie snarled. "It's almost a shame the bastard is dead, I'd like to kill him meself."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "Frankie, can you keep a secret?"  
  
Frankie folded her arms. "I'd help you hide a body, Sören, you know that."  
  
Sören leaned in and whispered, "He killed Justin."  
  
Frankie's jaw dropped. "He..."  
  
Sören nodded solemnly.  
  
Frankie let out a low whistle. "Shit, I almost wish I hadn't hit him now. This guy needs a humanitarian award, or something."  
  
"I told him what happened and he said he had to go to the UK 'on emergency business', he came back and... yeah." Sören got chills thinking about it again.  
  
"OK, I can't hate him anymore," Frankie said. "I'm still pissed at him for leaving you but -"  
  
"Well, there was... an explanation for that," Sören said. "It's quite a story. It still doesn't quite justify what happened, but it's why I forgave him."  
  
"So it wasn't just that he gave you the good dick and you got all stupid."  
  
Sören narrowed his eyes at that but then he grinned, laughing. "No. I'm not quite what I used to be, I'm a bit more discriminating now, even if I'm in an open relationship. Which, you know, I have you and Margrét to thank, for introducing me to the concept."  
  
"Well, you're welcome."  
  
"It still feels surreal."  
  
"What, you and Dooku having a boyfriend?"  
  
"Jæja, that too, I suppose, but no I mean..." Sören gestured to her. "I thought you were a lesbian."  
  
Frankie nodded. "I still mostly am? I lean more towards women. But I dunno... Kol has been friends with your sister for awhile, and as I got to know him I realized I  _liked_  him, a lot, as a person, and that made him beautiful to me. That makes him sexy to me. I dunno if that makes sense at all."  
  
"It does." Sören nodded. "I'll let you in on something - when I was eighteen, back in summer 2003 -"  
  
"Jesus Christ, Sören, you make me feel like a kid. I was only  _eight._ "  
  
"I know." Sören laughed. "As I was saying... in the summer of 2003, I was in Reykjavik, at uni - had the summer off - and there was a tourist, an English girl named Claire. She was lost in the city, and I helped her get where she needed to go, and bought her a coffee. Found out she'd been all addled and confused because her grandfather had died just a few weeks prior and she was still shaken up, so I made it my mission to try to cheer her up and became her unofficial tour guide. And, well... I liked her."  
  
Frankie's jaw dropped.  
  
"I never told her about it, we never went there," Sören said. "I regretted it, especially when I found out she took her own life. But yeah, there was a girl, who I would have shagged if she asked me."  
  
"I... wow." Frankie seemed at a total loss for words. "Wow."  
  
"You look about how I feel when I found out about you and Kol," Sören said.  
  
"I wonder what would have happened if you told me about this when we lived in London," Frankie said.  
  
And Sören knew, then, she was thinking what he was thinking. They had considered themselves sort of siblings, but that had also been because of the assumption that they were both completely, 100% gay, instead of just mostly gay. And they had always been very close, very physical with each other, sometimes sharing a bed to cuddle up together, they had both seen each other naked and made remarks like "you're pretty hot for a girl", "you're pretty hot for a guy".  
  
Sören said nothing, but finished his champagne. His heart was racing.  
  
They waded some more around the pool, and Sören felt mischievous enough to duck under the water and grab her foot, which made Frankie scream and yell and splash him furiously when he bobbed up to the surface. She ducked him, and then he ducked her, and they continued splashing each other and horsing around until some more people got in the pool, which they took as their cue to leave.  
  
They toweled off, and Frankie changed in the locker room. She accompanied him to his suite so he could get dressed up there. She noticed him having a small panic attack in the elevator on the way up and took his hand, which was comforting but also got him flustered again, feeling confused by his responses.  
  
Once they were in the suite, Sören got a couple cold Sprites from the fridge and got changed, into jean shorts and a fresh T-shirt. He sat with Frankie for a bit, and then her phone went off.  
  
"It's my aunt," she said, "I gotta take this."  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
Frankie stood up. "Hey! Oh good, was your flight OK? Yeah, the party is at seven. Sören is here though so if you want to see me now, you can hang out with us the next couple hours?" She looked at Sören, who gave the thumbs up. "Brilliant. We can pick you up at the airport." She looked back at Sören and hissed, "You don't mind, do you?"  
  
"Nah," Sören said, taking a swig of his Sprite. "If Maglor and Nico took the jeep I'll just get a rental."  
  
Sören saw his jeep still in its parking slot, which meant they either had gotten a rental themselves or were walking or taking public transit. Frankie climbed in the passenger seat, and Sören in the driver's seat.  
  
"I'm still not used to seeing you drive," Frankie said, laughing.  
  
"Yeah, I know. It was so weird in England, with everything being on the  _wrong fucking side._  I had that Vespa scooter that Nico gave me, for awhile, but -"  
  
"I still can't believe you gave the sodding thing back. I would have kept it and sold it if I didn't want it anymore."  
  
"I know, but I'm..." Sören shrugged. "I'm not like that."  
  
"You've always been proud." Frankie nodded. She stroked his face, sadness in her eyes. "I've always admired that about you."  
  
Sören took her hand and kissed it, then wished he hadn't, feeling his cock stir a little.  _This is your best friend, and she's getting married to your sister. You need to stop before this gets any weirder._  
  
Just before Sören could pull out of the parking stall, he saw Vanimórë pull in, in a Bentley, in the stall right in front of them. He started honking his horn, waving madly. He rolled down the window and shouted, "Van! Hi!"  
  
Vanimórë approached the jeep. "Hello." He glanced over Sören's shoulder at Frankie. "And hello to you too."  
  
"Van, this is Frankie. Frankie, this is... Van Apollyon."  
  
Frankie's jaw dropped. "Holy fuck," she said. Then she covered her mouth. "I mean, um. Where are my manners." She held her hand out and said in her best RP accent, which was not very good at all, "How do you do."  
  
Laughing softly, Vanimórë took her hand and kissed it. "It's nice to meet you." He let go of her hand, with Frankie blushing, looking flabbergasted, and he looked at Sören, then Frankie, then back to Sören again. "Where are you two headed?"  
  
"Keflavik Airport, to pick up her aunt. Um..." Sören didn't know why he was asking this, but he missed him. "Do you want to come with us?" He looked at Frankie. "Do you mind?"  
  
"No, I don't mind."  
  
Sören expected Vanimórë to invite them into the Bentley, and surprised him by climbing into the back seat of the jeep. Sören began pulling out, and once he was on the road, he put on the radio. He put it on the alt-rock station, which played mostly stuff from the 1990s and early 00s, when Sören was a teenager and Frankie was a small girl, but would still remember some of it.  
  
Sure enough, Frankie found herself nodding along at a song by Filter. "I remember this."  
  
"This was one of the songs playing the first time I got drunk," Sören said.  
  
Frankie snorted. "You must have been young."  
  
"Too young." Sören nodded. "It's like a rite of passage where I come from. I threw up on Margrét later. She was... not thrilled."  
  
Frankie laughed. "I bet."  
  
"Feels like such a long time ago, now." Sören sighed. "But hey, I had fun! And it was outside. Kids these days don't even know what outside is, it seems, with their video games and all that shit." Then he looked into the rear-view mirror at Vanimórë, feeling self-conscious. "I'm sorry, we sound like a couple old people reminiscing about the good old days, and you probably don't want to hang with your grandma and grandpa the next few hours."  
  
Vanimórë gave him a fond little smile. "It's quite all right, and I assure you, spending time with the 'old folks' is fine with me."  
  
"That's good. So, on our way to - where were we going again?" Sören joked.  
  
"Who are you?" Frankie teased back.  
  
"What am I doing in this vehicle... do I even remember how to drive?"  
  
"God, don't let Dooku hear you say any of that."  
  
"Or Maglor." It came out before Sören could stop himself.  
  
"Or what?" Frankie raised an eyebrow.  
  
" _Ohshit_ ," Sören said under his breath.  
  
"Who's Mag-?"  
  
"I'lltellyoulater," Sören said, wanting to kick himself.  
  
Siobhan O'Riordan looked like an older version of Frankie, with shoulder-length carrot-red hair, the same silver-blue eyes as her niece, pale, pudgy. Dressed in a smart navy pantsuit. She looked nervous as she got in the jeep next to Vanimórë.  
  
"Aunt Siobhan, this is Sören's, um, friend, Van."  
  
"A pleasure," Vanimórë said, taking her hand.  
  
"You need to stop at the hotel to drop your bags off?" Sören asked.  
  
Siobhan nodded. "Then I'm open to going anywhere you want to go. I... haven't bought you a wedding gift yet, wanted to save the money till I had you with me to make sure it was something you'd actually want -"  
  
"Auntie, we've been over this, you don't need to get me anything," Frankie said. "Me, Margrét and Kol are pretty comfortable between the three of us."  
  
"I know, but -"  
  
They went back to the hotel. Siobhan checked in and found out her room was also being paid for by Apollyon Enterprises. Then she put two and two together. "Wait," she said, looking at Vanimórë. "You're Van Apol-"  
  
Vanimórë nodded, and made the "quiet" gesture with his finger to his lips. "I prefer to keep a low profile," he said.  
  
"Which is why I didn't recognize you right away, because I've never seen pictures of you anywhere, but my god." Siobhan's jaw dropped. "Why would you..."  
  
"A show of gratitude," Vanimórë said, "to the hospitality Sören and his family have shown me."  
  
Siobhan threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. "Well, if you're ever in London, look me up and I'll personally make you dinner, or bake you some biscuits or scones, yeah?"  
  
"Auntie's scones are the best," Frankie said.  
  
"I can vouch for that too," Sören said.  
  
"I brought a box for you!" Siobhan gave Sören a gentle swat. "It's with my things, but it's all yours."  
  
"Awwwww."  
  
Instead of going shopping, Sören elected to take them to Tjörnin, which he thought would be more relaxing after Siobhan's flight, and a nice introduction to Reykjavik. Sure enough, Siobhan liked it very much, and the four found a peaceful spot, watching the ducks and geese and swans, and the peace of the greenery and the fountain.  
  
They walked around a little after sitting for awhile; there was a food cart, and Sören couldn't resist getting a  _pylsa_  even though he'd be having dinner in a couple hours. Frankie wanted one also, so they got in line behind a few schoolchildren. Sören paid for the kids too, eliciting cheers and thank-yous, before he made the order, " _Tveir með allt_."  
  
They ate their hot dogs, sitting on a bench. Sören then realized this was probably the worst activity he could have chosen, with Frankie eating a hot dog once again getting his mind going about what she would look like giving head, and it didn't help that she could fit a lot of it in her mouth at one time.  
  
_This is fine._  
  
There was a street performer, singing and playing an acoustic guitar, and Sören and Frankie wandered over to him to listen for awhile. That was when he saw Maglor and Dooku approaching, walking hand-in-hand, each carrying a shopping bag. Sören grinned and waved them over. Once Maglor and Dooku were there, the street performer began to play a song by Kansas.  
  
_Carry on my wayward son  
For there'll be peace when you are done  
Lay your weary head to rest  
Don't you cry no more_  
  
Sören's eyes met Maglor's, and across their bond Sören could feel a curious mixture of sorrow, longing and relief, the grief of ages and the light of hope. Maglor came closer, and Sören put an arm around his waist.  
  
_Masquerading as a man with a reason  
My charade is the event of the season  
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know  
On a stormy sea of moving emotion  
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean  
I set a course for winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say  
  
Carry on my wayward son  
For there'll be peace when you are done  
Lay your weary head to rest  
Don't you cry no more  
  
Carry on, you will always remember  
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor  
Now your life's no longer empty  
Surely heaven waits for you_  
  
When the song was over, both Sören and Maglor reached into their wallets to produce money for the performer. Sören knew from their past years in Reykjavik that Maglor would always give money to street performers no matter whether they were good or bad, but he tended to be more generous if the performer had any talent, and he watched now with his eyes wide as Maglor gave the performer a 10000 ISK banknote, his eyes misty.  
  
" _Nei, nei, það er of mikið_ ," the performer said.  
  
Maglor spoke back to him in Icelandic; Sören always smiled when Maglor tried to speak his language. " _Þú verður. Þú varst mjög góður._ "  
  
The performer took it, giving Maglor a look, and then Maglor and Dooku walked Sören, Frankie, Vanimórë and Siobhan back to the jeep, with Frankie introducing her aunt Siobhan.  
  
"We can regroup at the hotel and discuss what we're doing for dinner?" Dooku asked, and Sören nodded.  
  
Maglor and Dooku arrived at the hotel first because public transit was less congested than the traffic to drive there. They were sitting in the lobby, and Sören waved them over, and then he froze in his tracks.  
  
There was a woman, tall, long dark hair to the middle of her back streaked with silver, grey eyes. She looked like a female version of Dagnýr... she looked a great deal like Sören's mother. She was wearing jeans and an off-white peasant blouse, and lots of silver chains and bangles, with a pentagram on a choker.  
  
"Gitta?"  
  
Her head cocked to one side. "...Sören." Her face lit up, and she held out her arms.  
  
Sören ran over to her and hugged her tight, choking up. He felt a second set of arms around him, belonging to an equally tall woman, wearing a purple knit cap, a purple T-shirt, and jeans.  
  
"Sören," Gitta said. "I haven't seen you since you were this tall." She held her hand to her waist. She put an arm around the woman with her. "This is my wife, Jane MacGregor."  
  
"Hello, Sören," Jane said in a delightful Scottish accent. "It's nice to finally meet my nephew!"  
  
As if on cue, the elevator doors opened and Dagnýr, Matt, and Proust stepped into the lobby. Dagnýr also stopped in his tracks, and Gitta said, "And there's your other nephew. Hej, Dag!"  
  
Dagnýr ran over, and then Dagnýr, Sören, Gitta and Jane had a group hug. Sören was openly crying now, and Dagnýr was teary too.  
  
"Well, shit," Dagnýr said. "Let's make a great first impression getting boogers everywhere, right?"  
  
Sören teasingly blew his nose on the tail of his brother's shirt, and Dagnýr smacked him in the back of the head, while Gitta and Jane laughed. "I want to say he's not normally like this," Dagnýr said, "but he's actually worse."  
  
Sören nodded, grinning through his tears.  
  
"He's at least housebroken, though," Dagnýr said, and then added, "I think."  
  
" _Hoppaðu uppi rassgatið á þér_ ," Sören replied, not unkindly.  
  
" _Asni,_ " Dagnýr teased back.  
  
Proust and Dooku both cleared their throats loudly, in unison.  
  
"Right," Sören said. "Dinner."  
  
"Great minds," Dagnýr said. He turned to Gitta and Jane. "You guys hungry? You want to come eat with us... somewhere?"  
  
Gitta nodded. "Dinner sounds good. Just no fermented shark nonsense, please."  
  
  
_  
  
Sören, Maglor, Dooku, Vanimórë, Siobhan, Frankie, Gitta, Jane, Dagnýr, Matt and Proust managed to get a large table together in the back of an upscale restaurant, with Vanimórë telling everyone, "I'm paying, so please order whatever you'd like."  
  
Dagnýr glared at him. "I appreciate that, but you know, that's a little too generous for people who you don't know -"  
  
"I know Sören," Vanimórë said, challenging his gaze, "and he's very dear to me. Money is no object. This is a way of showing I care. Please, let me do this."  
  
"All right." Dagnýr's eyes narrowed, and then he cast a suspicious glance at Maglor, as well.  
  
There was the obligatory getting-to-know-you conversation, with Siobhan mentioning she ran a coffeehouse back in Greenwich called It's A Coffee House, where Sören had been employed as a barista for most of his stay in London. Then Gitta and Jane talked about the bed-and-breakfast they ran in St Andrews, Scotland.  
  
Sören remembered the photos he'd seen on Claire's old LiveJournal blog, taken in St Andrews, some of which were taken at bed-and-breakfast. He found himself asking, "This is a bit of a long shot because this would have been years ago, but..." He cleared his throat.  
  
Gitta raised an eyebrow, waiting.  
  
Then Jane's phone alarm went off. Jane looked at it, and quietly pulled out a pack of pills. There were a lot of them, which she took with a glass of water. Sören tried not to stare, but Jane finally explained, "Chemo."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"She has ovarian cancer," Gitta said, putting her hand over Jane's and patting it.  
  
It explained why Jane was wearing a knit hat in this heat, and seemed a little too thin. Sören felt a pang of sadness, and thought about not continuing his train of thought, but then Jane gestured to him and said, "Go on, Sören, you were saying...?"  
  
"All right." Sören nodded and took a deep breath. "Around 2004, an, ah, old friend of mine visited St. Andrews, I know it was a really long time ago but she might have stayed at your bed-and-breakfast. She had her little cousin with her, a boy, Harrison I think his name was, and her name was Claire James...?"  
  
Maglor dropped his glass, and it spilled over the table. "Oh shit, I'm sorry," he said, wiping it up.  
  
Without thinking about it, Sören used the Force to take napkins from the center of the table and blot it up, and then gasped when he realized what he had done. They were at a secluded table and there was no one else around, nor did it look like there were video cameras, but Sören still felt the urge to bolt...  
  
...and then calmly, Gitta waved her hand and her glass of ginger ale floated an inch off the table and she leaned down to sip it. Her eyes locked with her nephew's.  
  
Sören took a few deep breaths. He was shaking.  
  
"Don't do that too hard, you get headaches later," Jane scolded her.  
  
"I know, but he... needed to know," Gitta said.  
  
"I'm not going to say anything," Siobhan said, reaching out to squeeze Sören's hand. Then she gave Frankie a pointed look, and Sören knew just from that look that apparently Siobhan had known about her niece's own Force sensitivity for some time. Frankie nodded.  
  
Sören looked at Proust. "It's all right," Proust told him. "I already knew."  
  
Dagnýr's eyes narrowed at Proust. "You..." He facepalmed. "Oh my god. Oh, my  _fucking god._  I'm an  _idiot._ "  
  
"How do you know Claire?" Maglor asked Sören, looking shaken.  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow. "How do  _you_  know Claire?"  
  
"I don't, exactly." Maglor then looked a bit self-conscious at that answer, as if he knew how weird it sounded, and he continued, "It's... complicated."  
  
"Hm, that seems to be your answer to a lot of things," Sören said dryly, taking a sip of his water.  
  
"It's complicated by even my standards of complicated," Maglor said.  
  
"If I may?" Gitta waved her hand, directing the attention back to her. "I do remember Claire, yes, and she did stay at our bed-and-breakfast that long time ago. Lovely girl."  
  
"She's dead now," Sören said, looking down.  
  
"I know." Gitta nodded.  
  
"How do you...?"  
  
"Her cousin Harrison fell in love with the town, and decided to move there for university. He still lives in St. Andrews, he's a music teacher now, in fact." Gitta and Jane looked at each other. "He's like the son we never had, he comes over a lot. You should meet him sometime, maybe."  
  
Sören's jaw dropped. "What are the fucking odds..."  
  
"Coincidences are rarely coincidental, for people like us," Gitta said.  
  
When dinner was over, they headed back to the hotel, as it was just about time for Margrét's party to start. Sören was still shaken up from the revelation that Gitta and Jane knew Claire,  _Maglor_  somehow knew  _of_  Claire which didn't make any goddamn sense, and he had almost put them in danger from unthinkingly using the Force in public. In the elevator on the way up to Margrét's penthouse suite, Sören started to have a panic attack bad enough to bring on an asthma attack. Dooku rubbed his back as he puffed on his inhaler, and Maglor pulled him close.  
  
"It's OK," Maglor soothed, petting Sören's curls. "It's all right."  
  
"I almost  _exposed_  us," Sören said, through grit teeth. "I'm a fucking idiot. I'm so sorry, Maglor -"  
  
Dagnýr hit the stop button on the elevator panel. He leaned against the wall with his arms folded. "Who and what are you?" he asked Maglor.  
  
Maglor looked at Dagnýr. "Start the elevator."  
  
"I will when you answer -"  
  
"Your brother is having a claustrophobia attack,  _start the goddamn fucking elevator NOW._ " Maglor's voice seemed louder than it actually was.  
  
Dagnýr did as he was told. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize -"  
  
"It's not like we've seen much of each other since we were fourteen," Sören muttered, "so you wouldn't know about my phobia."  
  
Dagnýr facepalmed. "Ouch."  
  
They got off at the penthouse suite. Hans, Leja, Qui, and Obi were already there, sipping champagne, Ari and Kol were making the rounds of the hors d'oeuvres, and Margrét was pacing around, wearing a little black party dress. Her face lit up when she saw her family coming out of the elevator, and then it fell when she felt the tension rolling off of them.  
  
"What happened?" Margrét asked.  
  
"A lot," Proust said. "A lot has happened, and... is happening." He clapped his hands together. "Good evening. Many of you do not know me, but I know many of you, and this family reunion is... quite a bit more significant than you may realize."  
  
He produced an item from his pocket, small and spherical, wrapped in a cloth. He removed the cloth.  
  
"That looks like one of those Magic 8 Balls," Obi said. "You hired a magician, Margrét?"  
  
Margrét gave him a look.  
  
"I prefer the term wizard," Proust said. He gestured to his companions from the elevator. "Have a seat." He took Maglor's sleeve before he could sit. "Not you."  
  
When everyone but Proust and Maglor were seated, Proust snapped his fingers and the lights in the suite went off. He looked at Maglor. "Show them."  
  
Maglor's eyes widened. "I... I don't even know some of these people -"  
  
"It's all right," Vanimórë said. "Show them." And then Vanimórë himself stood up and removed his contacts, letting his hair fall to his ankles.  
  
Maglor took a deep breath, and there were a few gasps as he began to glow silver, his hair falling to his thighs, eyes brighter and iridescent.  
  
"Holy shit," Qui said to Obi, "I think we smoked too much of the good shit before we got on the plane."  
  
"It's not a drug hallucination, Joaquin," Proust told him.  
  
"How did you...?"  
  
Proust patted Maglor's shoulder. "You can sit now," he said.  
  
"Gee,  _thanks_ ," Maglor said, giving him a grumpy look before he took a seat with Dooku and Sören.  
  
Proust turned to Margrét. "May I borrow your bedroom? Is there anything... indiscreet... that needs to be put away? I have to show a few people something and it is better done in privacy."  
  
"Bedroom should be fine," Margrét said.  
  
"Splendid. Margrét, you and Frankie will be first. Come." He gestured.  
  
Margrét and Frankie looked at each other, and then Frankie got up. Margrét followed her, and Proust led them to the bedroom of the penthouse suite.  
  
Twenty minutes later, Margrét and Frankie came back, both crying.  
  
"Are you all right?" Dooku got up, concerned.  
  
Margrét nodded, and just went to him for a hug, leaning on him. Frankie hugged him tight too.  
  
"Dagnýr, it's your turn," Proust said.  
  
"Oh god." Dagnýr got up. "What in the  _fuck._ "  
  
He shuffled off to the bedroom. Ten minutes later Dagnýr began screaming in Icelandic, and Proust replied in Icelandic, and Dagnýr began to cry, brokenly. Sören got up, about to go in there and see what the hell was going on, and Maglor held out his arm to block him.  
  
"But..."  
  
Maglor looked up at Sören. "It's OK, even if it sounds like it's not OK."  
  
Another fifteen minutes passed, and Dagnýr came out, still crying, looking visibly shaken. He and Sören spent a long minute just looking at each other, and then Sören held out his arms and Dagnýr went to him, crying on him. "I'm so sorry," he choked out.  
  
"You didn't know about the elevator and it's not like I ever told you," Sören said, "and I'm sorry too for bringing up you leaving us -"  
  
"You idiot," Dagnýr hissed under his breath, and then he said, "It's not that." He took Sören's face in his hands. "It's not that. It's..." He gestured to Proust.  
  
Sören stood up.  
  
"It's not your turn yet," Proust said. He pointed to Dooku. "You."  
  
Dooku got up, and was the only one of the group thus far to not follow Proust reluctantly, as if he was waiting to be shown, knew something the others didn't know. Sören looked at Maglor, as he dried his brother's tears, and Maglor shrugged.  
  
A half-hour later Dooku came back. "What kind of alcohol is on tap?" he asked Kol.  
  
Kol poured him a glass of whisky, and he was about to pour one for Sören as well, but Proust took Sören's hand, pulling him to his feet. "It's time," he said.  
  
Sören felt like every step was made of lead, barely breathing. When Proust shut the door behind him, his heart was hammering in his ears.  
  
"Please sit down," Proust said.  
  
"You're not human, are you?"  
  
"No. I'm an old friend of your... partner's. He knows me by the name Olórin. You're probably familiar with me by another name."  
  
"Other than Brian Proust."  
  
"Gandalf."  
  
Sören's first instinct was to laugh, but he knew better by now than to laugh, considering what Maglor was. Instead, his jaw dropped.  
  
Gandalf held out the sphere, which looked like dark glass. "You made this," he said.  
  
"I... what." Sören recoiled. "The fuck. No, I don't... I've never blown glass."  
  
"You. Made. This. A long time ago." Gandalf thrust the orb at him. "Take it, Curufinwë Fëanáro Finwion."  
  
"What." Sören's jaw dropped. He remembered hearing the name  _Náro_  in his visions.  
  
Visions of a forge.  
  
The kind of place you blow glass.  
  
He felt that urge to run again. "What... did you call me."  
  
"Fëanor."  
  
On the tip of Sören's tongue were the words  _that's not my name, you're fucking with me, this is bullshit_  but he was holding the glass ball now - he couldn't remember taking it - and he blinked, doing a double-take when it looked like there was a sea of stars and brightly colored nebulas forming on the dark glass.  
  
"Yes," Gandalf said, as if he could sense Sören's confusion.  
  
"What's happening...?"  
  
"Just look into the orb, Fëanáro," Gandalf said. "Or, rather, don't look.  _See._ "


	39. Tears Unnumbered Ye Shall Shed

**Tears Unnumbered Ye Shall Shed**

 

 

Maglor  _felt_  the explosion before he heard it, the sudden rise of temperature in the penthouse suite, something like a sonic boom outside even though they were far enough away from the airport for that to not make sense. Then, there it was: the screams in Icelandic, the heavy breathing, more screaming, at last the door to the bedroom slammed open and the sound of Sören's steel-toed Doc Martens boots stomping down the hall. Sören didn't even  _look_  at anyone else in the room, but stormed out of the suite altogether.  
  
Maglor and Dooku looked at each other. "Right," Dooku said and got up, Maglor got up too. Dagnýr also got up.  
  
Sören was walking away from the suite, and Maglor called to him. "Sören." And then, "Fëanor."  
  
Sören not only didn't turn around, but broke off in a run, getting in the elevator and frantically pushing the buttons for it to close.  
  
"Shit." It had to be bad if he was getting in an elevator by himself.  
  
"We can take the stairs...?" Dooku asked.  
  
They headed to the emergency exit and ran down the flights of stairs. By the time they got on the ground floor, Sören was nowhere in sight. They checked the ground floor first - the bar, the restaurant, the pool. No sign of Sören. Sören's jeep was in its parking stall.  
  
Maglor got behind the wheel, with Dooku in the passenger seat and Dagnýr in the back. Maglor looked into the rear-view mirror and asked Dagnýr, "Why are you with us for this?"  
  
"He's still my brother, in this life," Dagnýr said. "I need to make up for earlier. Plus if you're looking for him, we have that twin... echolocation... thing... or whatever the fuck it is."  
  
Maglor began pulling out of the parking lot. "He can't have gotten far if he's on foot," Dooku said.  
  
"Not if he took the bus," Maglor said. He looked at Dagnýr in the rear-view mirror, and he and Dagnýr said in unison, "Tjörnin." It was one of Sören's favorite places in Reykjavik if not his favorite, even though he had already been there earlier in the day, and it made sense he'd go to the peace of the lake when he was feeling so much inner turmoil. Even from a distance, Maglor could  _feel_  it, like it was ripping Sören apart.  
  
They drove to Tjörnin, and split up once there to cover more ground. Maglor felt panic, even though he knew Reykjavik had one of the lowest crime rates in the world and there was very likely nothing that would happen to Sören in a public place in broad daylight here, and he realized after a minute it wasn't so much that he was afraid of something happening to Sören, as it still felt too hot, the air too thin, and he was afraid all of Sören's rage at what he'd seen was going to combine with his gifts in some way and make a public display that would make their lives more interesting than they needed to be at this moment in time.  
  
He reached into the Song, sending what comfort he could in Sören's general direction, and then he heard the crying. He ran ahead and saw Dagnýr had gotten to him first. Sören was laying in the grass in the fetal position, and Dagnýr was kneeling beside him, also crying a little, petting his brother.  
  
" _Það er allt í lagi, ég er hér, við erum öll hér, það er allt í lagi, við erum að fara að laga þetta einhvern veginn,_ " Dagnýr said.  
  
" _Það mun aldrei vera allt í lagi_ ," Sören replied, and the brokenness in his voice made Maglor's heart sink.  
  
Dooku was striding around from the other side now. If anyone could get through to him when he was like this, it was Fingolfin. Dooku sat down and pulled Sören up, into his arms, and they just looked at each other for a moment. And Maglor saw the awe in Sören's eyes, his full lips parting slightly as he reached out to stroke Dooku's face.  
  
"Fëanáro," Dooku said, simply, taking Sören's hand and pressing it to his heart.  
  
"Ñolofinwë."  
  
Dooku let go of Sören's hand, took Sören's face in his hands, and kissed him deeply.  
  
The sight took Maglor's breath away, brought tears to his eyes. It was erotic, as well - not just that Sören and Dooku being physical with each other was always an arousing sight to him, and even more arousing now that they knew who and what they were to each other... but it was beautiful, the way they loved each other, the way they had found each other again despite the Doom, their love for each other more powerful than the curse of the gods.  
  
After a couple minutes Dagnýr started making vomit noises, and Sören held up his middle finger. And Maglor's tears mingled with laughter - missing his own brothers, and the banter between them, especially with Maedhros, glad that in this life, Finrod and Fëanor had been made brothers. At least they had that.  
  
Dooku and Sören pulled apart, with Dooku petting Sören's curls.  
  
"This fucking sucks," Sören said. "We were sent here to be abused, we were sent here to be  _mortal_ , hopefully to kill ourselves or be killed. I find you again after everything but god knows how long you have left, and -"  
  
The Hells were freezing over, because Maglor found himself quoting Vanimórë. "There are powers stronger than the Doom," Maglor said.  
  
Sören gave him an incredulous look.  
  
"Come back to the suite," Maglor said. "The party's not over yet." He wasn't just talking about Margrét's event.  
  
Dooku and Dagnýr helped Sören up, and walked him back to the jeep. Sören still looked shell-shocked, which was understandable. Dagnýr got in the back seat again and on the way back to the hotel he held his brother, murmuring to him in Icelandic, while Maglor and Dooku exchanged occasional worried glances, both on edge and concerned for the man they loved.  
  
_What happens now,_  Dooku spoke into Maglor's mind.  
  
Maglor cleared his throat softly. "Hey, Sören? So, um... what did you see?"  
  
It took Sören a moment, and then he rolled off his brother and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"I have a folder of reaction memes on my phone, like I do on my laptop."  
  
Maglor wasn't surprised Sören had a meme folder on both devices. He watched in the rear-view mirror as Sören hit a few buttons, and then he used the Force to float the phone over and Maglor saw:

 

(Image: The "Oh god! I can see forever!" cat.)

 

"That cat is me right now," Sören said. "I saw... a lot." He used the Force to take back his phone and put it back in his pocket.  
  
"I bet."  
  
"It was..." Sören took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, facepalmed, and rubbed his face. "It felt like a download. It was so many things, and the visions kept coming faster and faster, like watching a movie on fast forward, but if you asked me about a specific scene I could tell you in detail what happened - the knowledge is all there, and my head fucking  _hurts_."  
  
"It was like that for me too," Dooku said, "though a few scenes played out more slowly than that."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Like my death."  
  
"Oh god." Maglor wanted to pull the jeep over and just hold Dooku, but he knew they'd never make it back to the hotel in a timely manner if he did that, they'd both fall apart and cry for hours, and it somehow felt imperative that they get back there. The tears could come later.  
  
"I'm..." Dooku swallowed hard. "Not in a very good place right now."  
  
"None of us are," Dagnýr said. "I saw my death too. I saw... too much. Including my time in Valinor, and being cast out once I protested what was happening. I didn't want the  _pardon_  and  _favor_  of gods who demonstrated cruelty and murderousness far worse than anything my kin had done. They are monsters."  
  
Sören looked at Dagnýr, and then he just hugged him, hard.  
  
"Findaráto, I need to buy you a drink sometime," Maglor said.  
  
"Sometime." Dagnýr nodded. He ran a hand through his hair, laughing. "God, I find out I'm Finrod, the one time I dye my hair blonde, what is this shit."  
  
"Why did you do that, anyway?" Sören asked, narrowing his eyes.  
  
"I'm... gonna dress up like Billy Idol tomorrow and sing some Billy Idol songs, at the reception."  
  
"Oh my fucking god." Maglor had to pull the jeep over. The surreality of it all had him doubling over and wheezing. Not to mention that - "I went to a Billy Idol concert back in the 80s."  
  
"Did you." Dagnýr raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Yeah, the 80s were, um." Maglor wiped his eyes. "I was in West Berlin. It was quite a place back then."  
  
"Did you have the 80s hair?"  
  
It took Maglor a moment, and then he nodded sheepishly. "I'm probably partially responsible for the hole in the ozone layer with all the hairspray I used back then."  
  
Sören howled, clapping. "Wow."  
  
"I'd pay to see pictures of that," Dagnýr said. "Are you doing that for the party tomorrow?"  
  
"A bit, but instead of a glam rock look I'm going goth."  
  
"Of course," Sören said. "Of course you are."  
  
"Listen, I'm so goth, I was there when they sacked Rome."  
  
Dooku facepalmed. "Please drive, Macalaurë."  
  
  
_  
  
Sören didn't know that he was necessarily  _calmer_  when he stepped back into his sister's penthouse suite, but he wasn't going to run off again, if only because he had no more energy. The adrenaline surge was over and replaced by exhaustion. He felt very, very tired, and very, very old.  
  
He also felt very, very guilty - he noticed that Leja, Hans, Qui, Obi, Siobhan, Gitta, and Jane had all left the party. It was just Margrét, Frankie, Kol, Ari, Matt, Vanimórë, and Proust in the suite. Margrét was drinking whisky, staring off into the distance, looking haunted.  
  
"We found a wild Sören," Maglor said.  
  
"I think he's housebroken," Dagnýr teased. "Not sure."  
  
That again. Sören smacked his brother in the back of the head before sitting down.  
  
"I see I ruined the party," Sören said, using the Force to bring over the whisky bottle, pouring himself a glass, not caring for once that there was no ice in it first.  
  
Proust tapped the glass and an ice cube appeared.  
  
" _Takk_ ," Sören said, and then he did a double-take. "What the -"  
  
"Right, so," Proust cleared his throat. "You didn't ruin the party. After the, er... display, I did two more showings -" He turned to Dooku. "Leja now knows she is Aredhel, and Joaquin... Qui-Gon... knows he is Argon."  
  
Dooku nodded.  
  
"They and their partners decided they needed to get some air and process everything and I told them I'd meet with them before the weekend was over to touch base about any questions or concerns they might have. Then Gitta suggested that the rest of you who have been shown things should have some privacy for discussion, and I have offered to meet with her, Jane, and Siobhan as well, if there is anything they feel they should know."  
  
Sören cocked his head to one side. "They're not..."  
  
"No. They have Elven blood, of course, but they are not Elven-souled, as you are." Proust folded his arms. "Sören, I hate to tell you this, but there is more you need to know about the situation you're in."  
  
Sören pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling his stomach doing flip-flops again, the pain of grief and rage like a thousand knives, trying to keep his voice below a roar. "What  _now_. What  _else_  could there possibly be, how much more  _fucked_  are we?"  
  
"I want all of you to gather round a circle and look into the  _palantir_  together," Proust said. "At least one of you in this room already knows what you're about to see, but..."  
  
Proust set the glass sphere in the center of the room, and the family gathered in a loose circle around it. Sören found himself reaching for Maglor and Dooku's hands without thinking about it, and before he could look too deeply at the sphere he heard Maglor's voice in his head.  
  
_Thank you._  
  
Sören glanced at him.  _For what..._  
  
He watched Maglor sigh.  _For not hating me._  Their eyes met.  _I wish I'd never rejected -_  
  
_Shhhh._  Sören let go of Maglor's hand and put a finger to his lips, and stroked his chin. He still felt  _stung_ , especially knowing that it had been twice Maglor had rejected him for a wife, though the second time of course had been a lie, an excuse to leave. Sören knew Maglor didn't know who he was until recently, somehow that was part of the information "download" he'd received, but on some subconscious level the patterns still repeated themselves. And yet, Sören forgave him, with the unconditional love of a father.  
  
It was still so strange to him - if he had biological children of his own, in this life, he wouldn't want them that way, and he would gouge out the eyes of any relatives who so much as looked at them the wrong way. He had accepted Maglor's relationship with his father and uncle before he knew who he himself was - it was different with the Noldor, in the way that pantheons in mythologies were different. There was no risk of genetic defects with inbreeding, no power imbalance - Fëanor and Maglor had been as equals, when Maglor was of age. But it was still  _unsettling_ , the knowledge that he was fucking his own son. He imagined that another human in this situation might end the relationship, too disturbed.  
  
He remembered the solitude and torment of the Void too clearly for that. He remembered his  _love_ , their  _passion_ , too clearly for that.   
  
_I am yours and you are mine,_  Sören told him across their bond.  _That hasn't changed. That will_  never  _change._  
  
Before Maglor could kiss him, Proust shot them a look. "The  _palantir_ ," he reminded them.  
  
_  
  
_Miriel, flowers in her hair, laughing with delight at butterflies dancing in her garden. Finwë watching with love in his eyes, walking over to join her. Miriel tells him to hold out his hand, his finger, and a butterfly lands on it.  
  
And then there is Indis, who pounces on them from behind, laughing. Miriel gives her a playful swat, and Indis gives her an innocent face that is still full of mischief, and leans in for a kiss. When she does, a butterfly lands on Miriel's nose.  
  
Finwë kisses both of them in turn, and then the women kiss each other again. They take each other's hands and walk from the garden.  
  
Miriel is gone, and Indis is hostile to Fëanor, and so is Finwë. What young Fëanor does not know, and what is shown now, is Indis grieving for Miriel, weeping for her, irrationally blaming Fëanor for her death.  
  
Ages pass, kingdoms rise and fall. There is a conqueror-king, Wodanaz, who is gaining the power of gods by killing them. He tells the Valar they will be spared, since their influence has mostly faded from the world anyway, if they give him gifts.  
  
One of their gifts is a weaver. Miriel's fëa is set forth, in chains, led to Wodanaz. He gives her the new name of Brynhildur, a Valkyrie, and now she weaves the doom of the slain on the battlefield, tossing a tapestry - invisible to the mortal eye - over warriors who Wodanaz has chosen for his ranks in Valhalla.  
  
She grieves Finwë, she grieves Indis, she grieves the life she had. This is no life, the endless killing. And yet one of the warriors of Valhalla, Sigurd, is different from the rest. He can sing, he can make poems. She lays with him, and they take comfort together.  
  
But the weariness sets in once more. She and Sigurd make their stand against the Allfather, and are cast out. Miriel-Brynhildur's fëa falls to Iceland, and a baby named Brynhildur Jónsdóttir draws breath, a distant cousin Sigurd Tollasson toddles across town in Akureyri.   
  
The Valar watch Tindómion and Maglor roaming the Earth, never crossing paths with each other despite Maglor's hopes, and see their interactions with mortals. They watch an exiled Noldo maid in Romania, living in the forest like a wild animal, who gives a half-Elf child to a count before disappearing. They see Tindómion burned at the stake for witchcraft in Iceland - how they rejoice in one of Fëanor's get killed by fire - and they begin discussing sending some of the House of Finwë into mortal bodies, to "deal with the Finwion problem once and for all". They will break their pride through trauma and tragedy, hardship and humiliation. They can send these spirits into mortal bodies if they have an Elven ancestor, and they will reserve the sending for when there is greatest darkness in the world, when mankind's cruelty has hit a peak.  
  
They start with Fingolfin, who they see as the most dangerous, next to Fëanor himself. A man and a woman of noble birth lose everything in the Nazi occupation of Romania during World War Two, and they leave for the United Kingdom, having a son, named Ion for a great-grandfather, and Nicolae for an uncle. He gives no joy to his parents, who are already drifting apart, and he is "you" or "it", only being called by his name if he is about to be sent to the woodshed. He will only allow people to use his surname for decades thereafter. Hearing "Nicolae" in Maglor's voice is like a rebirth.  
  
Brynhildur Jónsdóttir grows up, not like the other girls. She moves things without touching them. She has visions of Indis, though she does not know who Indis is, thinking her to be a guardian angel from her mother's Catholic teachings.  
  
The Valar curse Fëanor and Findis to suffer the most abuse of all of them for their sin, their pride, but Miriel-Brynhildur's love for her son, and her wife's wish to protect what she can of her children guides these spirits together, into her care. Finrod wants to make amends to Fëanor, and Indis would have wanted her favorite son Finarfin's favorite son to be protected as well. In Miriel-Brynhildur's dreams, Írimë is nudged to another time and place so she and Findis can find each other again without more reproach than what they will get as two women in this time, though Miriel-Brynhildur does not know what she is doing when she pushes the girl along.  
  
In ancient Iceland, a völva sees Fëanor, released from the Halls of Mandos, unrestrained in his rage, going after Wodanaz, reminding her of a wolf in his ferocity. She gets his name wrong - Fenrir. And he is not one of Loki's get, as the myths say, but that is her only reference for the fire she sees.  
  
The Hewer of Caves, who works on the Large Hadron Collider, is called the World Serpent, in the context the völva has for what she sees. There is Findis the shieldmaiden, now Margrét, pale and clad in black with black lipstick and heavy eyeshadow, surrounded by people dressed similarly in a nightclub with eerie lighting, and she is called Hel, the goddess of death, host of the dead.  
  
Wodanaz hears the prophecy of the wolf that will destroy him when unchained. He knows the name is too close to the other name. He does not know that in what he is about to do, he is ensuring the prophecy comes true - he uses his sorcery and attacks Miriel-Brynhildur and Sigurd. They fight back, but it is harder each time, and after Sigurd's death, Brynhildur tells her sister and her brother, who she has learned are both gifted in the same way she is but less so, to leave Iceland for their own safety. She considers sending the children with them but thinks she can protect them. Her sister goes to Scotland, and her brother to Australia. She will never see them again.  
  
At the Dimmuborgir, there is one last blast of power that hits him in the eye and keeps him from being able to see her children and plot against them more than the Valar already have. Her head is pounding, and she lays down for a nap. It is the last time she closes her eyes.  
  
A small boy with a halo of dark curls finds her, not breathing.  
  
_  
  
_  
  
Now Sören's head was pounding, and he wondered if his mother felt like this when she lay down that last time.  
  
"Wow," Dagnýr said.  
  
"Wow indeed," Proust said.  
  
"So..." Dagnýr leaned back in his chair. "It's not just the Valar that we pissed off, but the Norse gods too. And from where I sit it looks almost like we were set up for that, so we'd be double doomed. That's... not great."  
  
"No," Proust said. He buried his face in his hands for a moment. "I had to intervene. You have no idea how much it  _pains_  me to turn against the Valar, to see them come to this, drunk on their own power, corrupted by it. I want to believe, desperately, that there is another universe, another reality, where they are not this bad, and would not do  _this_  to..." He couldn't finish his sentence. "But this is not that reality."  
  
"You say you had to intervene," Sören said, "but what can you do? We're mortal. We're not  _gods._ "  
  
"I was not a god, either," Vanimórë spoke up. "But I gained power, with time. I ascended. And there is a reality I can speak of, where you all. Have. Ascended."  
  
"You..." Dagnýr used the Force to bring over the bottle of Auchentoshan and took a large nip directly from the bottle, not even bothering with a shot glass now. "You've... seen other universes."  
  
"Yes, Dagnýr. I have. I come from another universe than this one. The Vanimórë of this world was killed in the War of the Ring. I was not."  
  
"That." Dagnýr's jaw dropped. He pointed at Vanimórë, then back at himself. "That. Um. Uh." He chugged from the bottle of Auchentoshan, until Matt snatched it out of his hand, giving him a dirty look.  
  
"You asked me earlier how I know Claire," Maglor said, looking at Sören. " _That_  is how I know of her, because Vanimórë told me about her and apparently I know her in at least two other universes. But you never answered my question about how  _you_  know her."  
  
"We met in summer 2003," Sören said. "I loved her, but she didn't know."  
  
Maglor fell apart, crying. Sören didn't understand why, until Maglor choked out through his tears, "So in those universes, she and I find each other but Sören is dead, and Sören's path crosses with her here but I never get to meet her. Is this part of the Doom, too? Keeping the three of us apart?"  
  
That hit Sören like a punch in the gut, and he found himself crying. "God."  
  
A few minutes passed with Sören and Maglor crying together, holding each other, and then Dagnýr snorted.  
  
"This is some fucking irony," Dagnýr said. "I have spent a  _tremendous_  amount of time on research and theory about the possibility of parallel universes and non-humans having visited Earth, I got called out by Dawkins, and there's hard proof right here and I can't in any kind of good conscience ever mention it because we all know what will happen."  
  
"I was already captured and experimented on by the government once," Maglor told him, "back in the 1970s. I am not going through that a second time. If I think you have even the slightest inclination to expose me and have me brought in for 'research', I don't care that you're my kinsman,  _I will kill you._ " His voice rang out and his eyes flashed.  
  
Dagnýr put up both his hands. "Dude. Chill. I know. Like I said, I'm not going to. I have  _ethics._  It's just... ironic that here's the living, breathing evidence of 'aliens' and other universes, and I can never say shit about it."  
  
"You want  _real_  irony?" Sören's jaw set. "Maglor finds his father and uncle again and we're both going to fucking  _die_ , someday. Fingolfin first."  
  
Dooku nodded, and drank.  
  
"That..." Vanimórë shook his head. "That is why I am here, Fëanor."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow, skeptical.  
  
"I came not just to guide Maglor's path back to yours, and yours to his, but... in my ascent to godhood I have a few special abilities. One of them is that I can grant immortality, to those I choose."  
  
Sören's eyes widened.  
  
"Anyone in this room who wants it, may have it," Vanimórë said.  
  
"So wait... if you make us immortal, what does that do, exactly. It means we don't die...?"  
  
"You won't die, and you won't be able to contract human diseases. No more colds or flu, but also no cancer, no heart disease, nothing of that nature. Any ailments that your body might have when the energy 'takes', such as arthritis -" He looked at Dooku. "Will be gone. You will feel young and healthy and strong, as a rule. You will recover from injury much faster, and injuries that would normally kill a human will not necessarily kill you, though it is still possible for you to be killed in battle or through magic with an extreme amount of applied effort. Also, it will not  _reverse_  your aging process, so you will always look to be the same age you were when you receive the gift. But you will also not age any further, so you, Dooku, will always be as you appear now at seventy, and you, Sören, will always appear as you do now at thirty-four."  
  
"Don't make the decision right away," Maglor urged. "It's a lot to consider. I have to move around and change identities every ten years or so, because I don't age, and that gets old after awhile, not putting down roots anywhere, not being able to form lasting connections to people, having to lie, constant fear of exposure."  
  
Vanimórë nodded. "You have some time to think about it, though not much, because I am leaving a few days after Vigdís and Páll return from the States and take their cottage back."  
  
"Why are you leaving?" Frankie asked, curious.  
  
"That gets into another part of this equation," Vanimórë said, looking at Proust. "One that you might be better at explaining."  
  
Proust took a deep breath. Now it was his turn to pour himself some whisky. "Fëanor," he said, "there's even more."  
  
"Of course there is." Sören snatched the whisky bottle away. Proust made another ice cube in Sören's shot glass before Sören poured. "Of course there fucking is."  
  
Proust took a moment, gathering his thoughts. "In the prophecies of where I come from... where we come from..." He looked at Maglor, who nodded. "One of them is of an event called the Dagor Dagorath."  
  
The alcohol was wearing away Sören's brain-to-mouth filter, not that he had much of one to begin with. "The fuck is with your languages? Fingolfin... Dagor Dagorath... it's like some Moon Moon shit," Sören said.  
  
Maglor facepalmed, and Dooku glared; Sören attempted a wink at Dooku, raising his glass.  
  
" _As I was saying_ ," Proust went on, badly concealing amusement, "the Dagor Dagorath is... the last battle at the end of the world. The major sign that the Dagorath is imminent... is the release of Fëanor's soul from the Halls of Mandos."  
  
"So wait," Sören said, "I'm directly responsible for  _two_  eschatologies? Ragnarök and the Dagorath?"  
  
"Apparently," Proust said.  
  
"Wow, that's metal as fuck."  
  
Sören heard Maglor's voice in his head.  _Sören, never change._  Sören threw the horns at him, and Maglor threw the horns back.  
  
"But like... so... what happens?" Sören asked. "With the Dagorath, I mean, we learn about Norse mythology in school because it's part of our history."  
  
"The prophecy for the Dagorath is not as clear as the prophecy for the Ragnarök," Proust said. "It is, obviously, an end of the world scenario, a cataclysmic destruction. But the prophecy says that after the Dagorath, you, Fëanor, will return the Silmarils to the Valar."  
  
"Yeah, fuckin' right," Sören said, feeling that surge of rage again, the memories from the  _palantir_  flickering through his mind's eye. "Number one. You say  _return_  - the Silmarils aren't theirs. They were stolen from me by that fucking skanky-ass  _jail crow_ , we took them back. Number two, I am not currently in possession of any of them. Number three, if I was somehow miraculously able to get a hold of them and I don't know the first thing in how the  _fuck_  to go about doing that, I'm sure as  _hell_  not handing them over to the Valar after what they did to us." He grabbed his crotch. "The Valar can get these jewels right here." He knocked down his whisky. "I don't give a  _fuck._ "  
  
It took a moment of stunned silence and then Maglor threw his arms around Sören, shaking with silent laughter, tearing up. "You know I love you, right?"  _They did not break you after all,_  Maglor spoke into his mind.  
  
"I know." Sören patted him.  
  
"I can't fault you for that," Proust said, nodding. "There was a time when I would have. But not after what I have seen."  
  
"This is what bugs me, though," Sören said. "Well, apart from the obvious of the  _fucking gall_  of the Valar to think I'm gonna be a good little boy and hand over my toys,  _fuck no_. If the Dagorath is like, the end of the world, rocks fall, everyone dies, how am I around to supposedly 'give back' the Silmarils?"  
  
"Well..." Proust sipped his whisky. "That is where many of the ancient sages of this world are correct, there is a saying,  _As above -_ "  
  
Ari finished it. " _\- So below._ "  
  
"It is possible that the Dagorath is a literal destruction event in the worldline that you -" Proust nodded at Vanimórë " - come from, and it will 'spill down' to affect things in other universes, other realities, without destroying them literally, but in another, more symbolic sense, those worlds will change."  
  
"That is what will happen, yes," Vanimórë said. "I am leaving to prepare for it. It will not happen immediately, but time flows differently where I am going to and I need to leave sooner rather than later to do what I can."  
  
Sören spoke directly into Vanimórë's mind, pleading with his eyes.  _Do you_  have  _to leave? Please, don't go. Stay._  
  
Vanimórë looked away.  _I must, beauty._  
  
"I have been looking after Dagnýr for the last few years," Proust said, "because Galadriel is very dear to me. Your sister misses you, Finrod."  
  
Dagnýr looked like he was going to start crying again. "Jesus."  
  
"But now that you know who you all are, and you know who I am, I am extending my offer of help to all of you," Proust said. "I have a feeling you may need it when the Dagorath does happen and this world begins to change, as I feel that things may get worse before they get better, in the months and years following."  
  
"All right," Margrét said, nodding.  
  
"One of the simplest things we can do to prepare is to set up an emergency network," Proust said. "A code phrase we can use in phone conversations if something happens and there needs to be a warning, since as you no doubt know, in a post 9/11 world there is very little true privacy and one has to be careful what is said."  
  
"What would you suggest?" Dagnýr asked.  
  
"I'll write it down, with a pronunciation guide," Proust said. "It will be in Elvish."  
  
"And in the meantime," Vanimórë said, "please do consider my offer. If you would defeat the Valar and throw off the chains of the Doom, immortality is the place to start, and my power can help catalyze yours, putting you on the path to ascension."  
  
"I don't want it," Matt said.  
  
Dagnýr looked at him.  
  
"It's hard enough without all of..." Matt gestured to Maglor. "What he has to go through, I'm sure. The world is a shitty fucking place now, and it seems like it's only going to get worse, with global warming, pollution, violence and terrorism, pandemics, world governments going farther to the right just like Europe did before World War II and Hitler took power... I don't want to wear  _chains of eternity_  around my neck and be fucking stuck here if things keep getting worse and there's some kind of apocalyptic event like World War III with nuclear war or something. And, like... the Valar? The Norse gods? What's that saying, power corrupts? How do we know we won't be as bad as they are, down the road, if we 'ascend'? He who fights monsters and all that. I don't want to turn into my brother Ben - Kylo - and I know that darkness in him, is in me too, I can feel it sometimes." Matt shuddered.  
  
"You still have time to think about it if you change your mind," Vanimórë told him.  
  
"I probably won't," Matt said, "but thanks anyway."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Back in their own penthouse suite, Sören just stood on the balcony for awhile in his pajamas, looking out at the view of Reykjavik. He was not so drunk as to feel vertigo with the height and the view, but he was drunk enough to feel emotional, and he had tears running down his face when Maglor at last came out on the balcony to make sure he was OK, also in pajamas, his hair stirring in the breeze, glamoured but glowing in the light of the August evening sun.  
  
"Ada," Maglor said, and Sören knew what it meant, now. He stroked Sören's face. "Come inside."  
  
Maglor put an arm around Sören and gently pushed him inside. Dooku was sitting on the bed, wearing black silk pajamas, his silver chest hair poking out from the V-neck of his top, and Sören felt himself stirring at the sight of it.  _The Valar may have cursed us to be mortal, to live fucked-up lives, but goddamn if my brother didn't incarnate to be just what I like. And just what I needed, older "daddy" type, someone to feel safe with after everything I've been through in this life. It's like Ñolo at least had enough power left to give me that._  His eyes misted again.  
  
Sören crawled onto the bed. He flomped onto Dooku, who kissed the top of his head and pet his curls. Sören looked up at him. "Fuck me," he husked.  
  
"You've had too much to drink tonight," Dooku said, patting him; his voice was a little slurred from his own alcohol consumption. "We both have."  
  
"You guys are going to be  _brutally_  hungover tomorrow," Maglor said, nodding. "I'm not exactly sober myself, though it takes more to get me to the point you guys are at."  
  
Sören whined, and Dooku chuckled. "I know, love," he said.  
  
Maglor climbed on the bed. "And honestly... I just need you guys to hold me tonight. And I need to hold you, too."  
  
They did just that, assembled into a cuddle pile, tangled up together. Sören sobbed into both of them, memories replaying from the  _palantir_. "It's too much. It's too... fucking... much."  
  
Maglor stroked Sören's curls, and Sören saw the tears in his own eyes. "At least I have you again." He looked at Dooku, and stroked his face. "Both of you."  
  
"I..." Dooku took a deep breath. "I found out, about three days ago. Sören called me Ñolo in his sleep, and I decided to look up Fingolfin on the Internet. It felt so...  _presumptuous_ , that I could be  _him_."  
  
"I've been having visions of a forge," Sören said, "but yeah, I mean, it wouldn't occur to me that I'd ever been someone  _important_ , let alone that important -"  
  
"Which is part of the curse," Maglor said. "Breaking your pride."  
  
"But I mean," Sören gestured to himself. "Look at me, and my sad little life. I'm nobody."  
  
"Dammit Sören, you're not nobody -"  
  
" -You didn't even know who I was, did you?"  
  
"Not until more recently, no," Maglor said, "though you and Nicolae reminded me a  _lot_  of my father and uncle, to the point where I felt like an utter  _moron_  when it finally dawned on me, that it should have been much more obvious than it was, and honestly, that had more to do with me, getting in my own way, seeing it and not daring to hope -"  
  
"I feel like I must be such a disappointment to you, considering what he was and considering what I am -"  
  
"That's where you're wrong." The tears were coming now, Maglor petting Sören, shaking a little, his voice shaking. "They tried their damnedest, but here you are. You're still very much  _you_. If a rose grows in concrete, it's not less remarkable for being there, it's moreso for being in the last place you'd expect it,  _thriving_  there. And despite all you've been through, all the darkness and horror you've experienced, your spirit burns so brightly, still. You still managed to relight a dying flame, inside me, before I even knew it was you. And you're still beautiful." Maglor pressed his lips to Sören's forehead, stroked his curls. "God, you're so beautiful." His eyes met Dooku's. "Both of you." The fingers of his free hand played through Dooku's chest hair for a moment.  
  
"He's pretty nice, yes." Sören tilted his face towards Dooku's. "A shame you think I'm too fuck to drunk."  
  
"Yes, Fëanáro," Dooku said, chuckling and patting him. "That's exactly it, you're too fuck to drunk."  
  
"You shut up."  
  
Dooku kissed the tip of his nose.  
  
That got Sören crying again, and Maglor cried openly with him, and at last Dooku cried a little as well. The three held each other, crying it out, sobbing out the grief for what they'd lost, their rage at what had been done to them past and present, and the fear and uncertainty of what was to come, until they exhausted themselves, sleeping entwined.


	40. Elves Gone Wild

**Elves Gone Wild**

 

"You may now kiss the bride."  
  
Margrét picked Frankie up off the ground, with Frankie throwing her arms around Margrét, and they kissed deeply, and then spent a moment nuzzling, grinning at each other as their attendants cheered.  
  
The wedding itself was held at Tjörnin, and it seemed like there were more swans gathered in the park than usual; Sören took a bunch of photos and some had swans walking around near the brides. Sören and Dagnýr made a beeline for their sister, with Dagnýr getting there first, hugging Margrét and Frankie tight, and Sören joined them in a group hug. A moment later Ari was there too, and when the five pulled apart, Ari and Sören looked at each other and then Sören reached out and hugged his cousin.  
  
_Do you forgive me now? Do you understand why I couldn't tell you?_  
  
Sören took a deep breath and nodded, patting his back.  _I don't think I would have reacted well, it was something I had to see._  
  
_I know. I saw_  that,  _too._  
  
When they pulled away, Sören folded his arms, and now he spoke aloud, though softly. "Is this why you've been single all this time?"  
  
"More or less." Ari looked off in the distance, sadness in his eyes.  
  
"Ari." Sören made Ari look back at him. "Listen. It's not  _disloyal_  of you to... well... move on. I know that sounds like an easy thing for me to say with the connections I've made, but I mean... look at Dag. He's not with any of Finrod's old partners, but he still has something good with Matt. And I made my connections before I knew who I was, who they were. It might be that if you go out and let yourself live a little, you might find Arwen by accident, the way I found Fingolfin and Maglor by accident. And if not? It's still OK for you to find someone new." Sören took his cousin's face in his hands. "There's more to the story than what's written - you know that, you write fanfic - and our story isn't over yet. This is a new story. New things happening."  
  
Ari sighed. "I suppose you're right." He looked down at the ground, and back up. "I think part of it too, is that I'm scared. My parents - well, you saw firsthand how they were. I don't really have a model for healthy relationships and I'm scared I'm going to fuck things up. I haven't been celibate all this time, I'd explode, but I've never let anyone in past an arm's length. Just a few fuckbuddies, friends with benefits, and yes Sören it's been both men and women, but no real emotional depth, and that isn't how I want to live my life, but I'm afraid to reach for  _more_."  
  
"Ari... you are without a doubt one of the most sensitive, kind people I've ever met," Sören said. "You're not like your parents at all. I really don't think you're capable of having a relationship even one tenth as fucked up as theirs was."  
  
"I'm afraid of getting hurt, too. Because of that sensitivity. I think you know how it is."  
  
Sören nodded; he knew all too well how it was. "We all get hurt, sometimes, even when it's good. I promise you, the moments of joy make up for any of the pain." Sören patted Ari's shoulder.  
  
The reception was being held back at the hotel. There was a two-hour window between the wedding and the reception to give people time to take care of whatever they needed to, including changing if they were going to wear 80s themed attired to the reception. Some of Margrét's friends from Reykjavik were already wearing New Wave and New Romantic outfits - one of them bore a striking resemblance to early 80s Adam Ant, right down to the makeup - and Dooku was wearing a Robert Palmer-esque suit and tie, that he'd also be wearing to the reception. But Sören's outfit was back in the suite, as he didn't want to wear it outside in the August heat and melt.  
  
It didn't take long for Maglor to change into his outfit - a long black tunic, black leather pants, a black-beaded rosary worn as a necklace; he took one of the barstools from the kitchenette in the suite into the bathroom to work on his hair and makeup. Sören came into the bathroom to borrow the mirror so he could switch out one of the small silver hoops in his ear with a dangly cross earring, and he snickered at the site of Maglor's fluffy hair, which wasn't anywhere near done yet.  
  
"Wow," Sören said, taking out the hoop. "That's... some hair."  
  
Maglor's eyes, enhanced with dark eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara, raked over the length of Sören, who was wearing a grey "wifebeater" tank top and jeans. When he saw Sören put the cross in his ear he made the connection. "Oh no. Oh  _no_. You're  _George Michael_?"  
  
Sören pulled out the aviator "Top Gun"-style sunglasses he had in the jeans pocket and put them on. "I have a leather jacket in my suitcase, it's a good thing the hotel has air conditioning."  
  
"Sören..."  
  
Sören grinned, and pushed the sunglasses up to the top of his head; he'd wear them properly later. He patted Maglor and scooted off.  
  
Maglor's hair took the better part of two hours, with Dooku finally yelling down the hall, "We need to head down now." A moment later Maglor came out, and Sören heard his voice saying, "This is as good as it's going to get, I guess."  
  
"You're gonna put somebody's eye out with that hair," Sören said when he saw the finished product, Maglor's hair teased and billowing.  
  
"We can go," Maglor said, nodding.  
  
"Was your hair  _seriously_  this bad in the 80s?" Sören asked as they got in the elevator.  
  
"It was worse."  
  
Sören leaned on Dooku, doubling over.  
  
The first thing Sören noticed when he got in the room where the reception was being held, was Dagnýr dressed like Billy Idol. Dagnýr waved at his brother and then he attempted the Billy Idol sneer, which made Sören gigglesnort. Sören's amusement intensified when he saw Margrét and Frankie dressed like they were rejects from Bananarama or The Go-Gos, brightly colored skirts and tops, lots of bangle bracelets and necklaces, teased hair.  
  
"This is the first time I've seen you wear actual colors in years," Sören said to his sister.   
  
"She was wearing a white wedding dress," Dagnýr said, and then he sang in a Billy Idol voice, "For a  _white wedding_."  
  
"White isn't a color," Sören said.  
  
"Yes it is."  
  
"Is not."  
  
"Is too."  
  
"Is not."  
  
"Is too."  
  
"Oh my fucking god, look at Kol," Frankie yelled, nudging Sören and pointing.  
  
Kol was walking towards them, waist-length red hair hanging loose, with a bandana tied around his head, wearing a white tank top and jeans, bearing a resemblance to Axl Rose but much more attractive. With him was a man with white-blonde hair done in many elaborate beaded braids with the top teased like Sören had seen in an old music video from Kajagoogoo. He had unusual eyes, so pale blue-grey they were almost white.  
  
"I like your hair," Sören said, reaching out to tweak one of the braids. He liked the man's eyes too, and the look of him in general, feeling a familiar randiness from his old hookup days.  
  
"Sören," Margrét said, "this is one of our friends, he's from the UK, his name is Eden. Eden Dale. Eden, that's my idiot brother Sören."  
  
Sören gave his sister the finger, then he shook Eden's hand. "How do you do."  
  
Maglor and Dooku were approaching now, who had hit the hors d'oeuvres table. "Eden, that's Mag - Alejandro, and Nicolae Dooku," Margrét said. "Sören's partners."  
  
Eden just looked at Maglor for a moment before taking his hand. Maglor's eyes narrowed in suspicion, but he shook Eden's hand. Dooku shook Eden's hand as well, making his usual pleasantries.  
  
"It's nice to meet all of you," Eden said. "I've heard so much about you." Eden looked at Sören. "Especially you."  
  
"Uh-oh," Sören said, grinning mischievously.  
  
Eden winked at him, and Sören felt a little flutter in his stomach. Then Kol and Eden wandered towards the hors d'oeuvres table, and Maglor spoke into Sören's mind.  _He's an Elf._  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow.  _Really. You can just tell..._  
  
_Yes. Kol isn't human either but I'm not entirely sure what's going on with him._  
  
Sören watched Kol and Eden at the table, looking as normal as could be, or as normal as two very tall men dressed up like Axl Rose and a member of Kajagoogoo could be.  _I wonder why Kol didn't say anything at the party last night...?_  
  
_Probably because there was a lot happening already, and he didn't want to steal the show from the rest of you. I guess he'll say something to your sister and Frankie when the time is right. Don't make a big deal out of it, but I felt like I ought to tell you what I was registering._  Maglor shoved a cheese cube into Sören's mouth. Then Maglor's eyes widened with shock.  _Speaking of non-humans..._  "I'm going to fucking die."  
  
Brian Proust was dressed up like ZZ Top - black hat, black sunglasses, black jacket, shirt and trousers, his long beard perfect for the look. He raised his hand in greeting, and Maglor facepalmed.  
  
Sören's jaw dropped, his mouth full of cheese, until Maglor elbowed him and he resumed chewing.  
  
Maglor said to Sören, "Let's hit the bar, yes?"  
  
That was what they did, each having whisky and then a shot of Brennivín. Then Sören got a mojito, for a change of pace, and as he worked on his mojito, he finally saw Vanimórë, wearing all black and the slightest touch of makeup but considerably more understated than Maglor. Vanimórë waved before heading over to Kol and Eden, and Maglor spoke into Sören's mind again.  _And they know_  him,  _somehow, which makes this even more interesting._  
  
_Hm, I suppose._  Sören sipped on his mojito. He liked Vanimórë a lot - he was definitely a little in love with him - but he wasn't entirely sure why Vanimórë was going to this amount of trouble for all of them - he knew that Vanimórë's hatred of injustice came as a reaction to the monstrous deeds of his father, not dissimilar to Sören's own intense hatred of bullying from what he'd experienced from his aunt and uncle and the way kids in school had handled a shy, sensitive asthmatic weakling back in the 1990s. But it felt like there was  _more_  to it than that, it was somehow more personal than just principles. He thought of that suspicion he held, wondering if Vanimórë was related to them somehow, but... how could that be? Sören wrinkled his nose in confusion.  
  
Frankie and Margrét were dancing now, their joy a strong contrast to the tears and grief of last night. Sören smiled as he watched them, and again felt that frisson of arousal as he watched Frankie's thick ass shaking, large breasts jiggling with the music. The briefest flicker of an ancient memory...  
  
_Fëanor and his half-sister Írimë reconciling after a lifetime of distance, embracing warmly as Fingolfin looks on with approval. Later, Findis falls in battle and Írimë is keening in grief, Fingolfin and Fëanor holding her as she pelts them with her fists, screaming vengeance. Fëanor finds Írimë by herself later, sitting on the ground, hugging her knees, staring off into the distance, and he sits with her, puts an arm around her. After he helps her up and leads her off so she can get some rest, Írimë slams him against the wall, kissing him passionately, and Fëanor responds, kissing her back..._  
  
"Oh no." Sören ordered a second mojito.  _Just now, shit got real weird._  
  
As if on cue, Frankie and Margrét danced over to them. Margrét took Maglor's hands and pulled him out on the floor, and Frankie dragged Sören onto the dance floor, guiding his hands to her generous hips. Sören was starting to get hard, and was trying not to stare at her breasts.  
  
It was a song by Prince, which somehow made everything worse. Maglor and Margrét were dancing like total dorks, and Dagnýr and Matt joined them - Matt was wearing something straight out of Miami Vice, which didn't quite go with his glasses. Meanwhile, Frankie and Sören were almost dirty dancing.  
  
"I need to give you guys your wedding present later," Sören said when Frankie's ass was grinding up on his crotch and he was trying desperately to not get harder than he already was.  
  
"Later. Like tomorrow before you leave." She turned around, mercifully, and then her hands were on his hips and that wasn't so merciful. Her silver-blue eyes were startlingly pretty, looking up at his, and then they narrowed and twinkled with mischief, a naughty smile on her full lips as she said, "We'll be busy tonight."  
  
"I'd hope so," Sören said. "Although I can't quite take Kol seriously dressed up like Axl Rose." Though the thought of Kol inside her didn't help his libido calm down at all.  
  
"You're a fine one to talk, that earring looks fucking ridiculous." Frankie batted the dangly cross earring around like a cat with a toy.  
  
"It does."  
  
"You're still better-looking than George Michael."  
  
"Awww, I don't know if I'd go that far." Sören blushed.  
  
"Oh my god, speaking of which." Frankie pointed again.  
  
There was Ari, also dressed in a leather bomber over a white tank top, blue jeans, wearing aviator sunglasses and a single dangling cross earring. Ari's golden-brown short hair and beard made him look closer to George Michael than Sören with his dark hair and beard.  
  
Sören and Ari both pulled up their aviator sunglasses at the same time and stared at each other. Maglor, Margrét, Dagnýr and Matt stopped dancing to watch as Ari walked across the room, and Matt began whistling the theme from  _The Good, The Bad and The Ugly_ , with Dagnýr making "wah-WAH-wah"s.  
  
"We can't both be bloody George Michael!" Sören said.  
  
"I had no idea  _you_  were gonna be George Michael too," Ari said, and gestured to Sören. "I mean, with your looks, you would have made a better Oates from Hall and Oates."  
  
Sören shook his head.  
  
Ari gestured to him again. "If we'd coordinated first, you could have been the other guy from Wham!"  
  
"Nobody even remembers the other guy from Wham!"  
  
"His name is Andrew Ridgeley," Maglor muttered under his breath.  
  
"Well, I'm not taking this off," Ari said.  
  
"There can be only one," Sören said, quoting  _Highlander_.  
  
"What, are you gonna fight me over it?" Ari held out his arms, grinning. "Come at me."  
  
"Oh my fucking god." Dagnýr facepalmed. "So if you guys become immortal, is this gonna be like  _Highlander_ where you're fighting each other, over... who gets to be George Michael?"  
  
"I need another drink," Maglor said.  
  
"Same," Margrét said, marching off with him to the bar.  
  
"Hey," Sören said, "it still makes more sense than the plot of  _Highlander II_."  
  
_  
  
Dooku was in a corner, nursing a shot of whisky, quietly observing - especially Sören and the way his ass looked in those jeans - and occasionally stealing glances at the clock. He was born in 1948, and in his thirties during the 1980s, which he remembered quite well, a fiery young barrister married to his career. Despite the material excess of those times - though he'd been an ardent Labour supporter, vocal Thatcher critic, giving money to the poor and charities when he could - his life had felt very empty, as he came home to an empty house, went on vacations alone, terrified not simply of emotional intimacy with another person but of physical intimacy in the days when AIDS was a death sentence; it would have been career suicide for him to be outed, with the prejudice against gay people back then. The 1980s were not a happy time for him, overall; most of his life, he'd been barely living, though that changed when he met Sören.  
  
He wondered now if on some subconscious level he'd been waiting for him. His Fëanor, who he'd  _worshiped_  as a young ellon, secret friends with the unfavorite of their father.  _Let's run away together,_  he'd said more than once.  
  
Gitta and Jane approached him now, women who'd had the courage to be openly gay back in those times. He both admired them and felt a little stung, as if the fates were mocking him for being so deeply closeted then he'd lived like a monk.  
  
"Hello," Gitta said, smiling.  
  
"Hello, Gitta."  
  
Gitta and Jane were not dressed up in outlandish outfits, but more conservatively, with the exception of Jane's hat, a flamboyant fedora with bright fake flowers and feathers on it. He and Jane were the same age, and Jane's cancer was also heightening his own discomfort.  
  
"It was a lovely wedding," Gitta said, and Jane nodded. "I wish we'd been able to see your wedding to Sören."  
  
"I do too," Dooku said. "It was a double wedding with Dagnýr and Matt, on the fall equinox last year. Dagnýr's idea, since he... likes... space."  _He likes space._  Dooku restrained the facepalm and polished off his whisky.  
  
Gitta smiled and reassuringly patted him. "I'm not good with crowds, either."  
  
"It's the noise," Dooku said. "Not just the physical noise, I mean, but." He pointed to his forehead.  
  
"Yes." Gitta nodded. "That. I know exactly what you mean."  
  
"Still, they're family, so this is what I do for my family."  
  
"It's good of you, especially as I know you've got a lot to, er, process."  
  
Dooku nodded. "A lot of memories, and feelings, and considerations, including what comes next. Whether or not I accept immort -" His voice trailed off. Gitta hadn't been in the room during that conversation, and he wasn't sure she was supposed to know.  
  
And then it was Jane's turn to pat him. "Van made us the same offer, privately," she said quietly.  
  
"I see. I suppose in your case, it's a little more urgent."  
  
"To take it this weekend, it's a no," Jane said, her voice quiet, and Dooku felt like something like a shield was going up around them, the air briefly shimmering - he looked at Gitta, whose eyes were closed, chanting under her breath. "I just met him, and I'm sure he means well, but I don't  _know_  him. I do know that I made my peace with death several months ago - my cancer is rather advanced, this is the last course of chemo I can try, and then it's just palliative care. I'm Wiccan, I believe sometimes it's just your time to go, and Gitta and I will see each other in the Summerland. I'm old, the world is changing more and more, and I don't think I can keep up, especially if I've got to move around from place to place and pretend to be someone new each time."  
  
"That's understandable. It's part of my own consideration with the offer," Dooku said, though he was leaning towards saying "yes" - it was contingent on what Sören would say.  
  
Vanimórë walked through the shield, and Gitta gave him a stunned look, and he gave her a nod as if to say  _yes, I can get through that_  before the air shimmered once again.  
  
"I couldn't help but overhear," Vanimórë said.  
  
_Of course,_  Dooku thought to himself.  
  
"I've been talking with Kol and our mutual friend Eden over there," Vanimórë said, glancing in their direction across the room, "and I'll be leaving some vials behind in the event anyone who doesn't decide or decides no before my departure and changes their mind, later on, can accept the offer."  
  
"That's appreciated," Dooku said.  
  
"Your mind is already mostly made up." Vanimórë's eyes held his.  
  
"Mostly. It depends a lot on Sören. He hasn't mentioned it, nor would I expect him to right now because we're already... digesting... quite a lot." Dooku took a deep breath, and wished he had more whisky.  
  
"It is quite a bit, yes."  
  
"It's still all so surreal." Dooku laughed a little. "First it was being involved with a 'fictional character', then it was finding out I'm the reincarnation of a 'fictional character'..."  
  
Vanimórë raised an eyebrow. "What if I told you there is at least one universe where you, yourself, are a fictional character?"  
  
Dooku laughed harder. "That's absurd."  
  
"A lot of things in the multiverse are absurd, Dooku, but yes, I'm afraid so." He gestured to the bar. "Drink?"  
  
Dooku had another shot of scotch, and Vanimórë sipped champagne. There were a few moments of awkward silence, and then Dooku watched as Dagnýr took the mic for karaoke, singing "White Wedding" by Billy Idol, dedicated to his sister.  
  
"The fiction can't be any stranger than the truth, can it?" Dooku mused.  
  
"It's a film franchise called  _Star Wars_. It paints a rather... unflattering view of you, as a villain. You have the same gifts you have now, and there is a monastic order you belong to of people with gifts like yours, called Jedi, which serves a Galactic government called the Republic. You eventually leave the Jedi and start a war against the Republic. You're a count, where you come from. Count Dooku. There is a series of novels that gives you a more sympathetic backstory, a characterization as a bit of a well-intentioned extremist - you were ordered to commit genocide by the Republic, you later form a clone army with the DNA from one of the survivors of the genocide, for use of the Republic, before you leave the Jedi... the clone army eventually turns on the Republic. Ostensibly, you went the way you did to stop the Republic from committing another genocide. Unfortunately, the novels where your motivations are discussed are no longer canonical and it doesn't make it into the films... the series is rather simplistically black-and-white in its morality and your grey area comes out on the 'evil' end of that, I'm afraid."  
  
"Hm, rather like my brother is seen as a villain of the Silmarillion and our family was seen as unequivocally wrong for what we did."  
  
"Rather like that, but not quite."  
  
"That's... interesting."  
  
"It seems that certain patterns tend to repeat themselves across universes," Vanimórë said. "Even as things may align differently in one universe, other things may align the same, or in recognizable parallels." He looked at Sören and Frankie, who were dancing past.  
  
"So what else happens in this...  _Star Wars?_ " Dooku snorted into his glass. "What a  _stupid_  name for a film series."  
  
"A lot of things, but I assume you're talking about yourself."  
  
"Yes, and... is anyone else there?"  
  
"Leja and Hans, who are called Leia, with an i, and Han. Qui-Gon and Obi." A pause. "Kylo Ren."  
  
"Oh dear."  
  
"He stabs his father there as well, but Han doesn't survive."  
  
Dooku knocked back his whisky, feeling for Leja. Leja, his adopted daughter... who was Aredhel, reborn. Qui-Gon, his adopted son, was Argon.  _My children._  He still couldn't believe it. The surreal feeling was intensifying, and the bartender poured him another shot. This was probably too many for him to have in public, and he didn't care. "So go on, what... what happens to me? What is the fate of this fictional version of me?"  
  
"It doesn't end well for you. You die in a duel."  
  
Dooku facepalmed. " _What is it with me dying in duels._ "  
  
"Well, there's a way to stop all of that." Vanimórë patted his arm. "Don't die."  
  
_  
  
Maglor was at the bar again, and stayed alongside Dooku, who he could tell was feeling ill at ease in the crowd. Dagnýr was on the mic again, singing two back-to-back Billy Idol songs, "Dancing With Myself" and "Rebel Yell", sneering and punching the air just like Billy Idol did in the old music videos, and there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to unsee his cousin Finrod doing that.  
  
"How are you holding up?" Maglor asked, sipping champagne.  
  
"Today I learned I am a fictional character in some other universe, some movie called  _Star Wars_ , where I am named Count Dooku, and I die in a duel." Dooku raised his glass of whisky. "This is fine."  
  
Maglor patted him. "It could be worse. At least you're not the donkey in  _Shrek._ "  
  
"That's an oddly specific claim."  
  
"I am very, very drunk." Maglor grinned. He looked at Dagnýr, way too into the Billy Idol persona. He wondered now if Finrod was this extra when he met Men for the first time. He decided he didn't want to know. "Not drunk enough."  
  
Ari took the mic now - presumably to save his cousin from making even more of an ass out of himself - and performed "Monkey" by George Michael. Sören joined them at the bar, for another mojito.  
  
"I saw you talking to Van," Sören slurred. "Anything interesting?"  
  
Dooku nodded. "He said he's going to leave some vials behind after he's gone, in case we need more time to decide. With..." He gestured to Kol and Eden. "His friends, over there."  
  
"Ah, Kol and, um, Kajagoogoo."  
  
Maglor facepalmed. "That's not his name."  
  
"I can't remember his name. Oh right, Eden." Sören sipped his mojito. "I can barely remember my own name, and you haven't even shagged me yet."  
  
This was going to be another night where they were all too wasted for sex, and Maglor  _almost_  regretted it. They'd make up for it in the next few days, though, and Maglor knew he wouldn't regret  _that_. In the meantime...  
  
"Fuckin' Ari. He could have told me he was gonna be George Fucking Michael," Sören said.  
  
"You could have told him you wanted to be George Michael," Maglor said, and chugged champagne at the surreality of what he just said, that any of this was even happening.  
  
"I'm gonna go up there and show him how it's done," Sören said.  
  
Maglor laughed at that. "Your Fëanor is showing." Fëanor was nothing if not competitive, having to be the best at everything. It was good to see that alive and well, and would be interesting to see how that manifested itself in the coming years.  
  
Sören grinned. "You're goddamn right."  
  
Maglor watched as Sören got up to talk to the DJ, and then when Ari's song was over, Sören gave a loud slow clap, before snatching the microphone away from him. The opening notes of "Faith" started, and Sören waited, then when it was time, he sang:  
  
_Well I guess it would be nice  
If I could touch your body  
I know not everybody  
Has got a body like you  
  
But I've got to think twice  
Before I give my heart away  
And I know all the games you play  
Because I play them too  
  
Oh but I  
Need some time off from that emotion  
Time to pick my heart up off the floor  
Oh when that love comes down  
Without devotion  
Well it takes a strong man baby  
But I'm showing you the door  
  
‘Cause I gotta have faith  
I gotta have faith  
‘Cause I gotta have faith, faith  
‘Cause I gotta have faith-ah, faith-ah, faith-AH_  
  
And just like in the music video, Sören was dancing around wiggling his ass in those jeans. Even when he was at his most ridiculous, he was almost infuriatingly attractive, and Maglor grumbled into his drink. Sören had a good voice for someone with no professional training, who just sang when he felt like it; Maglor had heard Sören sing in the shower often over the years. He came closer, without thinking about it, and Sören danced towards him, eventually taking off his leather jacket and throwing it at Maglor.  
  
"Whooooo!" Frankie cheered at the end. "Encore! Encore!"  
  
Sören wasn't going to perform the same song twice; he went to the DJ, exchanged a few words with the DJ nodding, and then Sören came towards Maglor again. "This one goes out to Macarena, or whatever the fuck your name is," he said.  
  
Maglor facepalmed, wanting to melt into the floor, touched that Sören would dedicate a song to him and affectionately annoyed by Sören mangling his name, not sure if it was deliberate or not - hard to tell when he was this drunk.  
  
_That's all I wanted:  
Something special, something sacred  
In your eyes.  
For just one moment  
To be bold and naked  
At your side.  
  
Sometimes I think that you never  
Understand me.  
Maybe this time is forever.  
Say it can be.  
  
That's all you wanted:  
Something special, someone sacred  
In your life.  
Just for one moment  
To be warm and naked  
At my side.  
  
Sometimes I think that you never  
Understand me.  
But something tells me together  
We'd be happy, oh, oh.  
  
I will be your father figure.  
Put your scar-red hand in mine.  
I will be your preacher teacher.  
Anything you have in mind.  
I will be your father figure.  
I have had enough of crime.  
I will be the one who loves you  
'Til the end of time._  
  
  
Maglor felt himself getting choked up. Not wanting to make a scene - either bursting into tears or kissing Sören passionately in front of the crowd - he went back to the bar. He had a bottle of Absolut vodka this time, which raised Dooku's eyebrows.  
  
"We're not driving anywhere," Maglor said. "I'll be fine."  
  
"I'll be fine" turned into, somehow, Maglor taking the mic and singing "Wind of Change" by Scorpions. He remembered the Berlin Wall coming down, could see it, remembered what it  _felt_  like, back then. A mixture of hope for humanity's future, and a sense of dread that the world was going to become smaller, more global, harder for him to hide, and would change even more rapidly, and even then at the turn of the 80s and 90s, it was getting harder and harder for him to be in the world - he had felt, as the Berlin Wall fell, that a wall was going up around him and his life even more than it was there before, the awareness of his separateness never more acute.   
  
And then, years later, the wall around his heart came down like the Berlin Wall, and he felt like he had a place in the world again.  
  
_Walking down the street  
Distant memories  
Are buried in the past forever  
I follow the Moskva  
Down to Gorky Park  
Listening to the wind of change  
  
Take me to the magic of the moment  
On a glory night  
Where the children of tomorrow share their dreams  
With you and me  
Take me to the magic of the moment  
On a glory night  
Where the children of tomorrow dream away  
in the wind of change_  
  
All those emotions came out as he sang, and his eyes met Sören's, and Dooku's, farther away. He could see Sören's eyes too bright, knowing how sensitive Sören was to his music, knowing Sören saw it and felt it too.  
  
Frankie and Margrét were getting teary too. When the song was over, Margrét told him, "Now sing Duran Duran!"  
  
Maglor wasn't in the mood for that, but he desperately needed something less emotional, so he went for something else that would forever be associated with the 1980s and his time in Berlin, but didn't quite have the same effect on him.  
  
_Hast du etwas Zeit für mich?  
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich  
Von neunundneunzig Luftballons  
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont  
Denkst du vielleicht grad an mich?  
Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich  
Von neunundneunzig Luftballons  
Und dass sowas von sowas kommt  
  
Neunundneunzig Luftballons  
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont  
Hielt man für Ufos aus dem All  
Darum schickte ein General  
'ne Fliegerstaffel hinterher  
Alarm zu geben, wenn's so wär  
Dabei war'n dort am Horizont  
Nur neunundneunzig Luftballons_  
  
  
He somehow got through the entirety of the song and he was done after that, aware of himself so drunk he was slurring at the end of the song. He staggered over to Sören and Dooku.  
  
"Hi," Maglor said, feeling the cheesy, shit-faced grin on his face.  
  
"That was cute," Sören said. "I've been wanting to replace 'Alejandro' for your ringtone on my cell and now I know what to -"  
  
" _Hells_ , Sören."  
  
Sören patted him. "Your German is pretty good, not that I would know or anything."  
  
"It needs work. I've been out of practice." Maglor wondered, then, if he should start practicing in anticipation of their next move, his next identity. Hopefully that wouldn't be for awhile but one never knew...  
  
"Should we get a bite to eat at the hotel restaurant, and then go back to our suite?" Dooku asked.  
  
"Yeah, you poor thing," Maglor said, "I'm sure the crowd is getting to you."  
  
"One more song?" Sören asked. "Plllllllllease?" He did the sad puppy dog face.  
  
"Awwww, come on, Sören, not that face -"  
  
Dooku chuckled.  
  
"I don't think I can, though," Maglor said. "I barely made it through that last song. I've had a  _liiiiiittle_  too much to drink." He held his thumb and index finger apart by an inch.  
  
"I'll do it. My sister really wants Duran Duran, so..." Sören strode towards the DJ.  
  
"Oh no, what is he planning," Dooku said.  
  
A few minutes later, there was Sören, drunkenly hamming it up again:  
  
_Dark in the city, night is a wire  
Steam in the subway, earth is afire  
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo  
  
Woman, you want me, give me a sign  
And catch my breathing even closer behind  
Do do do do do do do dodo dododo dodo  
  
In touch with the ground  
I'm on the hunt, I'm after you  
Smell like I sound, I'm lost in a crowd  
And I'm hungry like the wolf_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [This post on Texts from the Silmarillion](https://textsfromthesilm.tumblr.com/post/183970564663/image-credit) was directly responsible for Maglor singing "99 Luftballoons", because I could not unsee it.


	41. Come Together

**Come Together**

 

 

It was the second morning in a row that Dooku woke up hungover, grumbling as the morning light seared through the drawn blinds and curtains, though the room was otherwise dim. He hadn't drank like this in, well, ever, and wedding and family reunion party or no, it seemed behavior more appropriate than a college student than a man his age.  
  
"I'm too old for this," Dooku heard himself say aloud.  
  
Sören and Maglor were both snuggled against his chest, three sets of legs lazily braided together, and he felt Sören smile into him, giving him a little headbutt like a cat as Sören sleepily murmured, "Hi too old for this."  
  
Dooku gave a loud smack to Sören's bottom, which made Sören giggle and wiggle his ass teasingly, all too enticingly - though he couldn't see it, at this angle, he knew from repeat past experience what it looked like, delicious. "It is too early in the morning for your shit."  
  
Sören lifted his head up to kiss the tip of Dooku's nose, grinning. "You love me." Then he rested his head on Dooku's chest again. "Ow, fucking  _ow_ , my head."  
  
Maglor made a noise like a wounded animal, stretching, squinting his eyes. "Fuck. Me."  
  
"Maybe when we're less hungover -"  
  
Dooku rubbed his face. "Coffee would be good for hangovers, but I don't particularly feel like getting up to go to the kitchen and making some -"  
  
"We can call up room service," Sören said. "Van is paying for everything."  
  
"That's..." On the one hand, Dooku didn't want to take advantage - he was a bit less reluctant than some members of Sören's family to accept the generosity from Vanimórë, as when he and Sören were living together in London he wanted to use his means to spoil Sören as much as possible, right down to buying him a Vespa scooter for his thirty-third birthday. On the other hand, it wasn't even the negligible cost of room service bringing up coffee that was making Dooku hesitate.  
  
Sören sensed it across their bond. "Nico. You know nudity is no big deal with Icelanders, and we'd pull up a sheet for courtesy anyway. If you're worried about them seeing three guys in a bed and being judgmental, don't be, you know this country is really liberal -"  
  
"I know. It's force of habit," Dooku said. "All of the 1980s business this weekend was a painful reminder of being alive in those times when... our arrangement... would not have been remotely socially acceptable."  
  
"West Berlin wasn't so bad," Maglor said, "but you had to be careful anywhere." His eyes were open now, and he stroked Dooku's face, before leaning in for a kiss. "I wish I'd found you sooner. We were both so alone back then."  
  
Dooku took Maglor's hand and kissed it. "Perhaps there is another universe where our paths crossed in those days."  
  
"Perhaps."  
  
"Back before I was all grey."  
  
"I'm sure you were quite fetching back then, in your thirties -  _Sören, don't you even_  - " Maglor glared and wagged a finger at Sören, who stuck his tongue out like a bratty child being denied his fun at making another "I'm" joke. "- But." Maglor stroked Dooku's whiskers. "I like my white wolf."  
  
"Mmmm, me too," Sören said, nuzzling Dooku's chest hair.  
  
Dooku blushed and smiled. Then he rubbed his forehead, feeling the hangover kicking him in the temples some more. Maglor nodded, wincing as well. Sören put an arm around Maglor, snuggling closer to Maglor and deeper into Dooku's chest. Dooku pet Sören's curls fondly. "Who wants to call room service and get our hungover arses some coffee?" Sören asked.  
  
"I'll do it," Maglor said, and reached for the phone on the table next to them. In Icelandic, he called down to the hotel waitstaff, with Sören smiling as he listened to Maglor speaking Icelandic, and then Dooku used the Force to turn the lock on the door and pull up a sheet over them as Sören chuckled.  
  
"You showoff," Sören said, giving Maglor a playful swat. "They speak English, you know."  
  
Maglor smiled. "I know, but it tickles you when I speak your language." He pulled Sören into a kiss. "It's a beautiful language."  
  
"You're a cunning linguist."  
  
Maglor laughed at that. "Well, not in some time."  
  
Dooku flushed at that, remembering Maglor had experience with both men and women. Then he saw Sören's expression change from mirth to sadness, and before Dooku could ask why, Sören just said, simply, "Claire."  
  
"Yeah." Maglor sighed. "I never met her, in this reality, but when I think about it, it feels like I know her here." He put a hand on his heart.  
  
"We didn't know each other terribly long, she was just in Reykjavik for a couple months, but it was long enough for me to have feelings for her," Sören said. "I always regretted never telling her, and moreso after I found out she." His eyes welled up and he couldn't finish that sentence. "I know this is stupid, but it feels almost like it's my fault, like maybe if I'd said something she might still be here -"  
  
Maglor kissed him hard. "No. Don't blame yourself for her death, Sören. Don't you dare."  
  
"It's part of the Doom," Dooku said, matter-of-factly. "I don't know if she has any past connections to us, or if she's just of Noldo blood, perhaps, but if anyone is to blame for this, it is the Valar."  
  
"I'm going to fucking kill them," Sören said.  
  
Maglor raised an eyebrow. "Sören, love, they're gods. That's... a pretty tall order, considering you're still mortal, and even if you..." He didn't need to say it. "You're still one man, against a pantheon. Uncle couldn't even take down Morgoth all by himself, and that was just one Vala."  
  
Dooku nodded solemnly, the flash of memory of Fingolfin's death replaying briefly before he punted it away, not wanting that to sour the morning.  
  
Sören's eyes met Maglor's, feverish, a little mad. "I'm. Going. To. Fucking.  _Kill._  Them. For that - to avenge Claire - and everything else they've done to us. Like putting that  _nīðing_  Justin Roberts in my path. And you're going to help." He took Maglor's bad hand and traced the scar. "You took an oath."  
  
"To retrieve the Silmarils at any cost. Which... are not here, as you can see. I wasn't very good at upholding that oath."  
  
"The oath is still binding, Kanafinwë."  
  
Maglor's eyes widened at Sören's use of his father-name, and Dooku was taken aback by it as well.  
  
Sören's voice was almost a growl. "We are going to get those Silmarils back. They. Are mine." His finger twined around a strand of Maglor's hair. " _You._  Are mine."  
  
The shock in Maglor's eyes turned to awe - Dooku could feel Sören's skin heating, like being next to a reactor - and Maglor breathed, simply, " _Fëanor_ ," before taking Sören's face in his hands and pulling him into a deep, hungry kiss that made them both moan into the kiss. Dooku gave an appreciative groan at the sight of it - his cock had already been stirring, between the proximity of their naked bodies and Sören and Maglor kissing before this, and now he was fully erect and throbbing, wanting both of them.  
  
Of course, that was when there was a knock on the door. " _Herbergisþjónusta!_ "  
  
" _Komdu inn, það er opið_ ," Sören called out, with a saucy little look at Dooku, then Maglor, letting them know "Come in, it's open" had a double meaning just for them.  
  
Dooku restrained a growl in his frustration. Maglor quickly glamoured himself. A busboy walked in and didn't even bat an eyelash at the sight of three shirtless men tangled up in bed together, just a sheet over them which didn't leave much to the imagination and suggested they were more than shirtless. He had a tray of coffee and fixings, fresh orange juice, and breakfast pastries. " _Takk_ ," Sören said.  
  
The busboy left the tray down on the bedtable, and was gone, and Sören sat up, using the Force to start adding cream and sugar to his coffee, then Sören pulled the cup of coffee over and sipped. "Mmm, creamy," he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that made Dooku want to roll him over and pound him into next week.  
  
Memories of Fëanor, teasing. The thread between past and present became even clearer when Sören began nibbling on a cinnamon roll, looking innocent and naughty all at once, especially when he licked and sucked the sugary icing from his thumb and fingers.  
  
Maglor unglamoured himself, and the breathtaking sight of him added to Dooku's arousal. He needed to get rid of this hangover. Dooku nursed his coffee, and Sören gave him an impish grin. "You're so sexy when you look grumpy." Sören kissed him, tasting sweet from the sugar in his coffee and the cinnamon roll he was eating. "My big bad wolf."  
  
Then, as Sören was finishing up the last bite of his cinnamon roll, a dollop of icing fell onto Dooku's chest, and Dooku didn't know if that was accidental or intentional, but either way... Sören leaned in and licked the icing, and the feel of his tongue, the sight of him licking, made Dooku's cock twinge again, aching for release.  
  
"Mmmm," Sören said, continuing to lick even after the icing had been cleaned.  
  
"Is my little wolf hungry?" Dooku asked.  
  
"Very." Sören put his empty coffee cup down and kissed him hard.  
  
Maglor watched them kiss with heat in his eyes, and then he came in to kiss Sören and kiss Dooku in turn. The three took turns kissing, with Dooku's cock growing ever harder - Sören's hand strayed beneath the sheet, encircling him, stroking slowly, before Maglor just dispensed with the sheet altogether, now that room service was gone and they didn't need that shred of modesty. Sören kissed, licked and nibbled Dooku's neck as Maglor claimed his mouth.  
  
"What does our Ñolo want?" Sören husked, stroking Dooku's face.  
  
Dooku looked at Maglor, then Sören. "You," he said. "Both of you."  
  
"You'll have to be a little more specific than that," Maglor said before he started kissing the other side of Dooku's neck, making it hard for him to think, and Sören kissing his shoulder didn't help.  
  
There were a lot of different things the three of them could do together, but it stood out to Dooku that he hadn't bottomed for Maglor yet. Dooku was more of a top, but Sören took him occasionally and he found he rather enjoyed it. It felt like it was the right time to give himself to Maglor that way, too.  
  
Dooku took Maglor's chin in his hand, stroking it, meeting his eyes, giving him a long, meaningful look for a moment before he spoke. "I want you inside me," he said, melting a little at the look of love in Maglor's eyes, knowing Maglor knew he didn't give that easily, it was an act of trust as much as it was an act of pleasure. Then he looked at Sören. "I want you to ride me." That had been his favorite position, when it was just the two of them, Sören astride his cock, and Sören loved it too. Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip at that, and Dooku heard himself growl as he seized the younger man and kissed him passionately, loving the way Sören whimpered into the kiss, feeling Sören's fingers play over his chest to linger on a nipple, rubbing and pinching. Dooku groaned into the kiss at Sören's touch, shivering.  
  
"We have to get you ready," Sören said, and looked at Maglor to explain, "He's pretty tight up there."  
  
Dooku facepalmed. Almost two years, and Sören's frankness about sexuality still threw him on occasion. "Thanks, Sören."  
  
Sören patted him.  
  
As much as Dooku wanted to stay there and lay back, he excused himself to the bathroom - he was nothing if not fastidious about hygiene, dismayed at the way many seniors let themselves go, something he was determined not to do. He washed up, and when he came out of the bathroom Sören was waiting. Dooku got on the bed and Maglor pulled him close, kissing him deeply and petting him, as Sören ran the sink in the bathroom, also washing up.   
  
When Sören came out of the bathroom he found them kissing and caressing, their hard cocks rubbing together, and Sören climbed onto the bed, himself fully erect, and grabbed Maglor by the hair to kiss him hard - Dooku smiled a little as he felt Maglor's cock jolt and throb against his, and then let out a moan as he watched Sören's and Maglor's tongues play together, before another deep, devouring kiss.   
  
Then it was Dooku's turn, with Sören kissing him more gently and teasingly at first, before that soul-searing passion that made him feel like he was being eaten alive, being  _possessed_. He loved that about Sören.   
  
Sören's hands roamed over each of them, and then he took their cocks in his fist for a few minutes as Maglor kissed his neck, and then Dooku was kissing the other side of Sören's neck, producing delicious moans. The moans got louder when both men sucked on his nipples and played with the nipple rings.  
  
They came up to kiss him in turn, and then Sören leaned in to take both their cocks in his mouth, sucking slowly, swirling his tongue as he sucked, as Dooku and Maglor kissed and caressed some more. Feeling Maglor's cock against his in Sören's talented mouth, and looking at the debauched sight of Sören with his mouth full, greedy for both of them, made Dooku feel urgent in his need, arching. But Maglor could tease just like Sören could tease, and Maglor's response to that was to kiss his way down from Dooku's neck to his chest, lapping a nipple, suckling.  
  
That made Sören want it too, coming up to work on the other one. Dooku clutched their heads, moaning as their lips and tongues pleasured and tormented him, his nipples in hard, sensitive, aching peaks. Sören's teeth were exquisite, the laving of his tongue after his teeth even moreso. Sören and Maglor spent awhile there, sometimes leaving for a moment to lick and nuzzle the silver pelt of chest hair, "our sexy wolf," Sören purred. At last, their attention went lower, kissing, licking, nibbling his stomach, then his hips, then his thighs. As they worked on his thighs together, Sören and Maglor's fingers strayed to gently brush his cock, and tease around his opening but not quite inside. Dooku could hear himself making utterly undignified noises, grateful they were on a floor by themselves with the penthouse suite. "Fuck, you sound so hot," Sören rasped, before nipping at Dooku's thigh with his teeth, a little harder than usual - he was going to have bruises there later. The evidence of where they'd been, what they'd done. That thrilled him. He wanted to be theirs.  
  
Sören licked his way from Dooku's thigh back up to his hip, and across his stomach, down to the cock, which was already dripping precum. Dooku watched as Sören lapped it hungrily, making a show of collecting it with his tongue and then gently tugging Maglor's hair to lift his face up, their tongues rubbing together before kissing to share it between them. Dooku let out a loud moan at that, and then moaned again as Sören took him into his mouth, full lips wrapped around him, swallowing him inch by inch. The sight of Sören sucking his cock always inflamed him with lust, always felt incredible, but it seemed like today of all days it was especially delicious. Sören's hands stroked up his thighs and hips and stomach, over his chest, caressing anything they could reach, and Sören smiled ever so slightly around his cock as he felt Dooku trembling.  
  
Then Maglor slipped his tongue inside him, as Sören sucked on him. Maglor's tongue found the sweet spot right away, slow, deliberate strokes. The feeling of Sören's mouth on his cock and Maglor's tongue inside him was almost too much, so pleasurable it almost hurt, too pleasurable to want to stop. One hand was in Sören's curls and the other was in Maglor's flood of hair, as he attempted to tell them "yes, please, that's so good," and couldn't make coherent words, completely lost in sensation.  
  
Maglor's tongue rubbed faster inside him as Sören teasingly let the cock slip from his mouth and licked the head, paying special attention to the slit. "You taste fucking delicious," Sören sighed, giving a few more licks before his lips wrapped around the head again, tongue continuing to lash as he sucked on the head, edging Dooku closer and closer.  
  
Before he could come like that, Maglor had the lube ready in his hand, and Dooku made a sound of protest when Maglor withdrew his tongue and instead just licked around the opening, one slick finger inside him, then two, then three, working in and out of him slowly. Then Maglor's fingers were moving faster, and when Dooku found himself rolling his hips, thrusting against Maglor's hand as Sören sucked harder and faster, Maglor knew he was ready. Sören took a few last licks at the precum, kissing Maglor again to share it with him before they came up, breathing hard.  
  
Dooku put his hands on Sören's hips, guiding him as Sören straddled him. He watched with rapt attention as Sören poured lube over his cock and played with it, giving him a naughty look; for a moment Sören took their cocks together in his fist, stroking slowly, with that crinkle of his nose and bite of his lower lip that made Dooku produce a growl, cock throbbing urgently, wanting him. Sören laughed at that, and his laughter became a moan when Dooku pinched a nipple and played with the ring. Sören scooted up, and poised himself over Dooku's cock, and Dooku put his hands on Sören's hips again as he sank down slowly. They both moaned together as Sören was stretched and filled, bit by bit, at last taking it to the hilt, with Sören letting out a triumphant cry when Dooku was all the way inside.  
  
They took each other's hands and just rested like that for a moment, and then Sören began to ride, slowly, with Dooku watching his cock plunge in and out of Sören, as Sören worked his hips, appreciating the lithe body moving so gracefully, the look of ecstasy on Sören's face as he felt the pleasure across their Force bond, his slightly upcurved cock hitting Sören's prostate just the right way in that position. The feel of gliding in and out of Sören's slick heat was as delicious as the sight of Sören taking it again and again.  
  
And then, Maglor was behind Sören, and Dooku felt the head of Maglor's cock pressed against his opening. "Yes?" Maglor asked, wanting to be sure.  
  
"Yes."  
  
Dooku took slow, deep breaths at the initial burning, pinching; Maglor was not small, and the length and thickness were always an adjustment. Maglor knew to go slow, and when he was in as far as he could go, he paused. Then he began to move, pushing into Dooku as Dooku's cock pulled out of Sören, pulling back when Sören sank down again. Maglor and Sören's hips rolled together, and Maglor's hands rested on Sören's hips, as Dooku's hands slid up over Sören's body, and down again, wanting to feel every inch of Sören's soft skin, silk over steel, enjoying the feel of Sören quivering to his caress.  
  
The feel of having his prostate rubbed at the same time as his cock was being pleasured inside silken, hot tightness, was almost overwhelming. Dooku heard himself moaning, accompanied by Sören's and Maglor's moans. He felt like he was melting. But it wasn't just that it felt good, or that the sight of Sören and Maglor on top of him - the two of whom were now kissing, as Maglor tilted Sören's head to his - but there was the feeling of rightness, of  _completion_.   
  
Memories of Fingolfin, of Fëanor riding him just like this with Maglor inside him, of the three of them in different positions, taking turns tasting each other, teasing each other, inside each other, heat and hunger that lasted for hours.  _Passion_  that was almost terrifying in its intensity, the three of them loving each other all-consumingly, insatiable in their need to fit together, to hold, to touch, body and soul. What they had was beautiful, and as many years as it had lasted - far beyond the years of a mortal lifespan - it had been all too brief, before Maglor pushed them away for Fanari, to return when Fëanor had died, and Maglor and Fingolfin took comfort in each other's bodies, and shatteringly intense and decadent though it was, it hadn't been the same. When Dooku and Sören began their journey together, it had just been the two of them, and for Dooku, that had been enough. But with Maglor here, it was like a piece they didn't even know had been missing. The three of them belonged, now as they had then.  
  
If this was what eternity had in store for him, making up for all their lost time, endless hours of pleasure and passion and ecstasy, he wanted it. He'd had a bite of the forbidden fruit, he wanted the entire damn forest.  
  
That was up to Sören. He did not want to be without his Fëanor again.  
  
Sören's arms reached back to wrap around Maglor's neck, as Maglor kissed and licked Sören's neck, his hands playing over Sören's body. It was a beautiful sight, and incredibly arousing - Dooku was setting the pace now, rocking up into Sören a little faster and harder. Sören and Maglor kissed again and again, and Sören moaned as Maglor played with his nipples. Now Maglor was moving inside him harder as Sören was riding him faster, and the pleasure was even more delicious, such that Dooku moaned, "Yes, my loves," encouraging them.  
  
All sense of time seemed to stop, nothing else mattering but this, their bodies, the sweet sensation, the connection. Dooku never wanted it to end, the journey to orgasm as exquisite as the destination, completely lost in his lovers' beauty, the way they were making him feel, and what he could sense across their bond of the pleasure he was giving them. He especially loved watching Sören and Maglor kissing as they enjoyed him together, Maglor's hands playing over Sören's body. When Maglor took Sören's cock in his hand, it was even more delicious to watch, and then Maglor's fingers were in Dooku's mouth, Dooku tasting the sweetness of Sören's precum. He thrust into Sören harder, faster, and Sören bucked on top of him, giving in and riding him even harder, as Maglor continued to play with his cock.  
  
"God, I'm so fucking close," Sören moaned, his forehead pressed against Maglor's.  
  
There was a wicked look on Maglor's face as he said, "Hi, so fucking close -"  
  
Sören  _growled_  at that and drew Maglor's lower lip between his teeth, biting hard enough to draw blood, sucking on it, making all three of them moan. Maglor gave Sören's ass a hard but playful swat, and then he bit Sören back, his teeth on Sören's neck, with Sören letting out a strangled sob, riding Dooku even harder, and Dooku matched his rhythm, thrusting into him, thrusting against Maglor, who was pounding into him now, rubbing his prostate right to that edge of his own release, keeping him there, building and building the tension and pleasure to fever pitch.  
  
Maglor played with Sören's cock some more, and his fingers went in Dooku's mouth again, feeding Dooku Sören's precum. And then with heat in his eyes, Maglor looked at Dooku,  _I know what you want_  across their bond, and Dooku watched as Maglor collected more of Sören's precum on his fingers and anointed Sören's nipples.  
  
Dooku grabbed Sören and pulled him down, feasting, suckling hungrily, Sören's hips going berserk now, the slap of their flesh almost as loud as Sören's cries as Maglor drove into him with abandon. The feel of Sören on him, around him, and Maglor inside him, the lewdness of Sören's nipples peaking beneath his tongue as Sören clutched him, making inhuman noises... he was close. And Sören was close, he could  _feel_  it, not just across their bond, but Sören was trembling, his thighs were quivering, and Sören was starting to pant, "Oh god. Oh god, oh god, ohgodohgodohgod -"  
  
Maglor was kissing Sören's neck again, his nape, his shoulder. Licking, nuzzling. The sensuality of it threatened to send Dooku over the edge. Maglor continued to play with Sören's cock, rubbed precum onto Sören's nipples again, with Dooku kissing them, loving the taste of him, the sounds Sören made. "Fuuuuck," Sören wailed.  
  
"You know you want to come," Maglor teased him, his voice almost a whisper, continuing to kiss and lick Sören's neck. "I want to watch you come all over him. Come for us, Ada."  
  
A moment that felt like an eternity, the push and the pull, and then, the telltale look of surprised awe on Sören's face, pupils blown wide, lips parted, his breath catching as it overtook him. It made Dooku's breath catch too, almost as if past and present were colliding, a wall of heat shimmering, enveloping them. "Kano,  _Ñolo!_ " Sören shuddered, and Dooku moaned with him as he felt Sören clench and pulse around him, felt Sören's seed coat his chest and stomach. One, two, three thrusts and he let go, crying out "Sören, Fëanor, Macalaurë," as he spent into Sören, making Sören shudder again and wail at the feel of hot seed shooting deep inside him, his cock and prostate both throbbing with the most intense climax he had ever known. Then he heard Maglor's cry of "Uncle" as he spent into him, bringing on another throbbing pulse of relief.  
  
The three lay there, panting, gasping, and Dooku realized at some point during their orgasm they'd joined hands. The room seemed to dissolve in bright light, like they were in the heart of a supernova, and Dooku swore for a moment he could hear bells. When he came back to himself the room was still glowing softly -  _they_  were still glowing softly - their hands joined.  
  
_If this is how it is before we're even immortal..._  Dooku wondered how much more intense it would be then, if it would have any effect on their bond, their powers.  
  
In the here and now... They had all been through so much, too much, but they were together again. And he'd given to Maglor what he'd only given to Sören, and it was just as wonderful. He loved two people, and was loved by them, and his heart felt larger, his capacity for joy greater than it had been. That was what he felt now, euphoria post-orgasm, and deep, deep contentment. All was not right with the world, not yet - they had very big enemies, and Dooku doubted they were done with the curse of the Valar and the Norse gods. But for now, things were right enough. He closed his eyes, giving a happy little sigh as he drifted off for awhile.  
  
  
_  
  
The family had time for a last brunch together before people traveling would have to go to the airport and catch their flights, before Sören, Maglor and Dooku would have to get in the jeep for the nearly six-hour drive back up the Ring Road to Akureyri. Dooku would be happy to see the cat.  
  
Sören chose then to give Margrét and Frankie a belated wedding gift, even though they'd sworn up and down they neither needed nor wanted people to go to the expense for them. Dooku recognized the sketch Sören had been working on, which he'd colored in with oil pastels. Though Kol was not legally their husband, as polygamy was not legal in Iceland, Sören had nonetheless included Kol in the picture, with Margrét and Frankie on either side of him. Kol was wearing regal-looking red and gold robes, a crown on his head with a flaming sunwheel. Margrét was wearing a gold and white robe, Frankie a gold and black robe, Margrét wielding a crystal-tipped scepter and Frankie a golden goblet. Above them soared an eagle, except the eagle was a phoenix, and the phoenix was lit by golden fire. Around them blazed a sunset, and in the distance were ruins of a temple, except it seemed somehow like the temple was being rebuilt - Dooku could see distant figures, making repairs to columns and foundation.  
  
Margrét and Kol both looked stunned, while Frankie reached out to hug Sören tight. "Jesus, Sören, that's fucking beautiful. We have to get a frame for it."  
  
"I used a sealer on it but you want to be careful with glass," Sören warned. "It would be better to put it in something like a shadowbox so it's not directly touching the glass and doesn't get smudged." He ran a nervous hand through his curls. "Er, I should have gotten you a display case for it, that was a stupid oversight on my part. Dumb of me. Typical."  
  
Dooku felt a sharp pang at Sören's self-deprecation.  
  
Margrét swatted him. "You need to cut that out," she snapped. " _God_ , you've been in a healthy relationship for two years and Justin's dead and it's still like he's controlling you -"  
  
Sören shrugged.  
  
"Trauma can last for a long time," Kol said quietly. Then he took Sören's hand for a minute and said, "Thank you, very much. That... you have a gift."  
  
"I hope it wasn't lame," Sören said.  
  
" _Sören._ " Margrét narrowed her eyes. "That's fucking  _gorgeous_ , don't you  _dare_."  
  
"It really is," Leja said. She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "I really miss showing your work in my gallery. I'd be happy to pay for you to ship a few pieces to me, sell them on your behalf... it would give you more exposure."  
  
Sören nodded. "I'll think about it. Right now my most immediate concern is getting us moved into the new place in Akureyri. But I think if I send you anything for your gallery it should be newer work, and that'll take some time to do."  
  
"It's a standing offer," Leja said.  
  
Maglor let out a sharp exhale. "Sören, as much as I hate to say this, my hot take here is that exposure is the last thing you want if you're planning on..." He said nothing else, only gave an uncomfortable glance at Vanimórë, who nodded.  
  
"Any decision should be an informed one," Vanimórë said. "You're not famous now, but you're not entirely unknown, either, and you have the potential to become more well-known. You have a very recognizable style of art, the more exposure you have, the more of a risk you run if you keep producing it after..."  
  
"Even if you do remain somewhat obscure and keep making it," Maglor said, "it will have to be under assumed names -"  
  
"Shit, yeah." Sören cringed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Let's... not have this discussion right now."  
  
And Dooku felt it, the pit in his stomach. He wondered if this would be the dealbreaker for Sören, as much as he loved Maglor and wouldn't want him to be alone for thousands of more years. He  _knew_  Sören, and knew Sören would rather cut off a limb than give up his art. And part of Sören's art was the story behind it, he would never be content to just be an anonymous, mysterious artist like another Banksy, but his art was very  _personal_.  
  
Their eyes met briefly, and then Sören looked away, looking almost ashamed at his reaction. Dooku looked at Maglor then, who looked like he was in pain, also knowing what this would cost Sören in the long run.  
  
It was time for people to go to the airport. Sören, Dooku, and Maglor elected to spend some time there before heading out on the Ring Road, so Sören's first goodbye was to his sister, Frankie, and Kol when brunch was finished.  
  
"You guys will come up in a couple weeks when we're settled, right?" Sören asked.  
  
Margrét nodded. "We can fly up, I can get someone else to watch the bar for the weekend, just let me know."  
  
Sören looked at Ari. "What about you? You gonna take some time out of that busy schedule of yours to come see your cousin?"  
  
"I will," Ari said. Then he looked down and rubbed his beard. "Honestly, I need a vacation, but we'll talk about that later."  
  
"Well, the cabin will be yours again, if you need a retreat," Sören said.  
  
Their eyes met and Ari clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll talk about that later, like I said."  
  
They exchanged goodbyes with Dooku and Maglor - Ari gave great hugs - and then they got in the jeep, to drive to Keflavik Airport. Sören was deadly quiet as he drove there, his expression stern as he watched the road. Maglor sat in the back, and Dooku kept stealing glances at Sören, wanting to break the silence somehow, but it was like sitting next to a volcano, and he didn't want it to erupt. Sören needed time to think about things. That was how it was with him.  
  
Sören managed to snap out of serious mode, as Dagnýr, Matt, and Brian Proust's flight was going back to Toronto first. Sören and Dagnýr hugged each other for a long time, crying a little. Dooku eavesdropped from a distance, even though he knew it was rude, his curiosity got the better of him.  
  
"I always hate saying goodbye to you," Sören said when they pulled apart, "and you," ruffling Matt's hair.  
  
"Yeah, me too." Dagnýr pulled him in for another hug, holding him tighter this time.  
  
"Are you guys gonna come out for Christmas, at least?"  
  
Dagnýr nodded. "Of course. Christmas in Iceland is where it's at." Then he sang in a Billy Idol voice, to the tune of "White Wedding", "It's a nice place for a...  _White Christmas._ " He did the Billy Idol sneer.  
  
Sören gave him a playful swat. "You fucking dork."  
  
"It's still better than you and Ari feuding over George Michael." Dagnýr snickered. "I need to see if I can get you each a 'Revenge' jacket like he was wearing in the 'Faith' video, for the Christmas Cat to avoid eating you this year."  
  
"How about you don't start that shit again." Sören looked at Proust. "I feel almost like I should apologize for this fucking family -"  
  
Proust smiled, his eyes twinkling. "There's no need. It's been delightful to be around."  
  
"Well, in that case, consider yourself invited for Christmas, too."  
  
"Excellent."  
  
"Icelandic Christmas is fucking  _weird_ ," Matt told him, "just warning you now."  
  
"You're warning  _Gandalf_  something's weird," Sören said. "Really."  
  
Dagnýr smirked. "You know what's weirder than Icelandic Christmas? Fëanor and Aragorn arguing over who gets to be George Michael."  
  
"I'd tell you go eat a dick, but..."  
  
"Er." Matt looked off to the side, and Dagnýr looked off to the other side.  
  
Then Dagnýr said, "Christmas 2020 though? You guys need to come to Toronto for a change. Not just because I keep inviting you guys and we keep deciding Iceland, but by then I'll have babies - or a baby -" Dagnýr rolled his eyes and huffed, "There we go again with the multiple births thing.  _Anyway_ , it'll be more practical for you guys to come to me, than for me to try to get on a plane with infants."  
  
Sören nodded. "I think that can be arranged. I've always wanted to see Canada."  
  
"We can make you poutine, eh?" Dagnýr grinned.  
  
"That's got... cheese... right?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Consider it a deal, then, Christmas 2020 in Toronto if you make me that poutine stuff."  
  
Dagnýr and Sören hugged some more. Sören said, finally, "So, are you gonna, um..." He cleared his throat. "That thing. With the blood." He looked at Matt. "I know you said no, but..."  
  
"Yeah, I'm not making Dag's decision for him," Matt said. "We talked about it and I told him I don't want him to feel obligated to say no just because I said no, I'll completely understand if he says yes, I won't think he's being disloyal or something."  
  
"I haven't said no, and I haven't said yes," Dagnýr said. "I'm going to need some time to think, and when I say some time I mean  _awhile_ , like probably some years. During which Matt might even change his mind!"  
  
"Don't bet on it," Matt said.  
  
"You said that about poutine, too, and now you need poutine rehab."  
  
Matt snorted.  
  
Dagnýr turned back to his brother. His voice lowered due to what they were discussing in a public airport, and Dooku had to use the Force to augument his hearing. "But this is a very... life-changing decision. If I said yes and something happened to my children, I would be regretting saying yes, and I don't want to force it on my kids, if I'm doing this, I want them to decide when they're old enough to make a decision about it one way or another. I'm not outright saying no because unlike Matt, I feel like there's a lot of hope for this world, hope for humanity - humans wouldn't have survived this long as a species if there wasn't. The scientist in me thinks it would be  _fucking awesome_  to be around the next few thousand years to see how the world changes, see all the technological advancements, see mankind colonize space, even. But I don't know if it's something I can or should do, because for all of my abstract love of humanity, it's not the same as the people I love, the people close to me, being around to share it with. And Matt's already said no. He may change his mind, he may not. Right now, I just don't know. It's a maybe."  
  
"I get it," Sören said, looking down.  
  
Over the intercom, a voice issued a reminder in Icelandic, then English that the IcelandAir flight to Toronto would be boarding soon. Dagnýr looked at his watch. "OK, we gotta go through security and all that shit." He hugged his brother one last time. "Let me know when you guys are in the new place, OK? The new old place." He smiled. "I have the faintest memory of us being there when we were small."  
  
"I'll see if I can get some pictures, too." Sören waved. "Have a safe flight."  
  
It was time for Gitta and Jane next, and Sören spent a long time hugging them, promising to keep in touch. Sören was a little teary when they walked off, hand-in-hand, and Maglor held him, kissing his forehead, petting his curls, with Sören spending a moment crying on his shoulder; Dooku could feel Sören's heartbreak over Jane's cancer, and all the regrets at what could have been, if they'd gotten back in contact sooner, or if Gitta had been able to raise them, even. Dooku could also sense Sören reacting to Gitta's appearance, again, who bore such a strong resemblance to his mother, missing her. Dooku went over to Sören to join in the group hug.  
  
The next people to depart were Frankie's aunt Siobhan and Margrét, Frankie and Kol's friend Eden, who were flying into Heathrow - Leja, Hans, Qui-Gon and Obi would be taking a later flight. Dooku kept a polite distance, though he was eavesdropping again.  
  
"It was nice seeing you again," Sören said, hugging Siobhan. "And thank you so much for the scones."  
  
"You're welcome." Siobhan patted him. "Thank you for looking out for my niece. She loves you a lot."  
  
"I love her a lot, too." Dooku could feel the weight in Sören's words, and when their eyes met, Sören looked away - another thing he wasn't ready to talk about or deal with right now.  
  
Eden kissed Sören's hand, making Sören blush and giggle. "I hope to see you again sometime," Eden said, and gave Sören a wink. Then he looked at Dooku, eyes raking the length of him - Dooku felt a little flustered, and gave a sheepish smile, as Maglor snickered.  
  
"He was checking you out," Maglor said when Eden strode off.  
  
"I..." Dooku felt perplexed by that. "Must be old enough to be his father."  
  
Maglor snorted.  _More likely the reverse, and then some. He's an Elf. I don't know_  who  _he is, but he is Quendi. We know our own kind._  
  
"I see."  
  
"And even if that weren't the case," Maglor said aloud, "you're a handsome man. I enjoy you just as much now, as I did back then."  
  
Dooku was  _very_  flustered now, and it wasn't just him who had been eavesdropping - Sören sauntered over, grinning. He gave Dooku a little kiss, and fondly stroked his whiskers.  
  
Leja chose that moment to come over, with Qui-Gon. "Hey, Dad?" she said to Dooku. "Hans and Obi are gonna look at the gift shops together, you want to get a cup of tea with us and chat for a bit?"  
  
Dooku looked at Sören and Maglor, who nodded. "I think I can keep this one out of trouble for awhile," Maglor said.  
  
"Oh, like you weren't full of mischief yourself back in the day," Sören said.  
  
"No idea where I get it from."  
  
"I could make jokes about where you 'get it' from -"  
  
Maglor started dragging Sören off, while Leja chuckled and Qui-Gon rolled his eyes, but smiled, amused as well.  
  
Dooku, Leja and Qui sat down at a table with some tea, and kept their voices down.  
  
"My children," Dooku said, feeling Fingolfin's love for them strongly, getting a little choked up.  
  
Qui reached out to take one hand, and Leja rubbed and patted the other.  
  
"The Force is stronger than the Doom," Qui said. "And the Force is with us."  
  
That choked him up even more. Dooku tried not to break down crying.  
  
He made himself pull together, and then he looked at each of them in turn and said, "Have you made a decision? Are you deciding?"  
  
"So," Leja said, sipping her tea, "one of my sons is in prison for life for stabbing his father, which his father is still deeply traumatized by - which  _I'm_  still deeply traumatized by... and my other son said no. My brother lives out in the middle of Nowhere, Iceland, as a hermit, as a recluse. I'm..." She put her tea down and sighed. "I'm not sure that saying  _yes_  is the best option for me, and living with all of this pain for thousands more years, especially if there's even a grain of truth to why Matt is saying no. I'm not ready to die yet, but I sure as hell don't want to be stuck here with all of this. I haven't officially said no, I'm allowing for the possibility that down the line, something might make me change my mind. But until that time..." She shook her head. She looked at Qui, then.  
  
"We're still considering," Qui-Gon said. "But Obi and I aren't sure. It's a lot, having to move around, change identities. I'm not sure how Maglor has done it all this time. Even knowing that at least one person I care about would be immortal, I don't know if it's enough for me to take the offer, as well."  
  
Dooku's lips quirked with the faintest touch of a smile as he nursed his tea. "'At least one person I care about would be immortal'... you act like I've already said yes."  
  
"Haven't you?" Qui raised an eyebrow.  
  
"I haven't officially said yes," Dooku said, putting his tea down.  
  
"But you seem pretty sure of it."  
  
"It's contingent on Sören." And their eyes met. "That said, it would be nice if we had some family around as well. I would miss you. You say the Force is stronger than the Doom, the Doom made you reborn as a mortal, Argon, and maybe this is the Force breaking its power. It certainly won't be an easy path, but it would be a  _little_  easier if we had each other around."  
  
"Perhaps." Qui nodded. "And perhaps not. Immortality does not ensure happiness, or the ability to tolerate each other forever."  
  
"No. Macalaurë is concerned we're going to hate him, eventually. I don't think I ever could. But I understand why he worries. It's a lot to, as you pointed out, move from place to place, change one's name, change one's life story. And, as you know, it's a lot to limit new connections with people. It's a lot to watch people get older and die, as you yourself do not." Dooku looked down. "It's going to be a lot to watch both of you die."  
  
"Mm, yes." Qui nodded again. "We both always assumed you would go first, Dad. Although I also privately thought you'd live to be one of those oldest people on Earth, kept alive by sheer stubbornness."  
  
"Stubbornness, which is something you would know absolutely nothing about."  
  
"I might have learned it by watching you. Then and now."  
  
Dooku snorted. Leja shook with silent laughter, and Dooku shot her a look, with Leja giving him an innocent smile.  
  
"You, and the bloody  _brilliant_  idea to challenge the Dark Lord in single combat," Qui said.  
  
"I was grieving Fëanor, and mad in my grief," Dooku said, his tone solemn. Leja stopped laughing.  
  
"Yes." Qui sighed.  
  
"I missed him, it was as if a part of my soul died when he did," Dooku said. "I knew, when I fought Morgoth, that there was a good chance I would not survive. I was already dying inside. And there was guilt, for those I would be leaving behind. But I did only what I could do, in that raw, searing, blinding pain." Dooku closed his eyes, not wanting to relive it again. He'd already seen it replay in his mind enough. When he opened his eyes, they met Qui's again. "So yes, what I decide is going to depend on Sören, and, well, you  _saw_  at brunch. This isn't easy for him either."  
  
"No, I imagine not."  
  
"But," Dooku said, "even if he says yes, and I say yes... and you do not say yes... I want to try to hold onto both of you as long as I can. It's going to hurt, when." He couldn't finish the sentence. Leja rubbed and patted his shoulder now. "It would hurt a bit  _less_  if you were around. And I would feel less guilty."  
  
"Well," Qui said, "if there's one thing you  _shouldn't_  feel, if you say yes, it's guilty."  
  
"I agree," Leja said. "We'll both understand."  
  
"I'll go as far as to say that, the only thing impacting your decision should be Sören, with the way you feel about him. Follow your heart. Don't hold back because I might not accept, or Leja might not accept, even if that means you're going to spend an eternity missing us. Who knows... we might see each other again. If you can break the Doom, somehow, we might be reborn into a better time, a better life, and we might meet again, and be in a better place to walk the world with you."  
  
Dooku felt himself on the verge of tears again, and Leja was there too. "Dammit, Qui-Gon."  
  
"I have faith that you will," Qui said. "Again, the Force is with you. It got you this far." He patted Dooku. "So... don't worry about us. You do what you have to do, and one way or another, it will all work out."  
  
"He's right." Leja nodded.  
  
"But we might say yes, down the road. Who knows. I can't make that decision right now, I need time to think. Probably some good weed, too."  
  
"Dear god." Dooku chuckled into his tea. "You and Sören."  
  
"That man finally got you to toke up," Qui said. "Just for that alone, I like him."  
  
"Priorities."  
  
"Yes. And maybe with this new adventure ahead of you, you might consider your life and your choices, as well."  
  
"Are you the one lecturing me now?" Dooku raised an eyebrow. "It sounds like a lecture."  
  
"Wait." Qui cleared his throat and his voice dropped into an imitation of Dooku's basso. " _As you know..._ "


	42. Life, the Universe, and Everything

**Life, the Universe, and Everything**

 

After spending the late afternoon and evening driving for close to six hours on the Ring Road from Reykjavik to Akureyri on Sunday night, Sören was glad he'd given himself and Maglor the next day off to recover. Tuesday was back to the studio at usual, and after classes Sören and Maglor went into town to begin furniture shopping for the new place, while Dooku started packing and moving bins of their stuff over to the house. The cabin had come with several pieces of furniture, such as a bed and chairs, that would need to stay in the cabin, as Sören was giving it back to Ari. They needed to get a bigger bed anyway, one that would fit three people more comfortably than the one in the cabin.  
  
On Friday, August sixteenth, Vigdís, Páll, and their children Sólveig and Sigurjón returned from the States, flying first into Keflavik, then into Akureyri. Maglor had Fridays off, and he and Vanimórë were around to greet them and return the keys to the cottage, and Auli. When Sören's classes let out, he drove down to the cottage rather than stopping home first.  
  
Auli greeted him at the door as Vigdís answered, giving him a warm hug. Sören was very happy to see his neighbor friends again, and relieved they'd returned safely, though he felt a pang of sadness as he stooped to pet Auli, knowing Maglor would miss his sheepdog companion.  
  
Vigdís invited him in. "You and Nicolae want to have dinner with us?" she asked.  
  
Sören nodded. "You feel like going out? We'll pay, to welcome you back properly. You probably don't feel like cooking after flying and jet lag."  
  
"That's a good idea, thank you."  
  
Sören took a deep breath - he'd been a little worried at mentioning he'd developed a romance with one of their renters; his neighbors were accepting and liberal with LGBT issues, as most Icelanders were, and had been nothing but warm and welcoming to the gay married couple on their street, but polyamory was a different thing altogether. That said, he wasn't going to be able to hide the fact that he was moving to town, or that he and his husband would be sharing a place with another man, Akureyri was a small world. "Do you mind if Alejandro comes with us?"  
  
"Oh." Vigdís's eyebrows went up at that. "No, I don't mind, he seems very nice. You got to be friends, I take it?"  
  
The look on Sören's face said it all, and she laughed and patted his shoulder. "Jæja, I see. I can't blame you, he's very attractive! I didn't know you and Nicolae were -"  
  
"We didn't know, either, and then this summer... happened." Sören relaxed, relieved that her reaction seemed to be one of amusement rather than judgment. "He'll be staying in town for awhile. Actually, we can talk more about that at dinner."  
  
Sören, Maglor and Dooku met them at a seafood restaurant on the bay, the same place Sören had been with Vanimórë before. Sören felt a little wistful, knowing Vanimórë would be leaving in a matter of days - he was still at the Hotel Akureyri right now, and they had foregone their "Friday night usual" to give Sören a chance to welcome back his neighbors and attend to any last-minute business before moving into the cabin this weekend.  
  
Most of dinner was spent listening to Vigdís and Páll talk about their trip to America, where they had visited several states and done a variety of things. They showed pictures on their cell phones of national parks, different landmarks, beaches; at one point they'd gone up in a hot-air balloon. Sólveig and Sigurjón had a chance to practice their English and wanted to keep practicing on Maglor and Dooku, who were entertained rather than annoyed.  
  
Finally Páll asked, "What were you folks up to this summer? Vigdís tells me you three are..."  
  
Dooku nodded.  
  
"There must be a bit of a story behind that."  
  
Sören tried not to choke on his Sprite. "Alejandro just... hit it off with us, I guess."  
  
"Well, if you guys are happy, that's what counts."  
  
"We are," Sören said, feeling another flood of relief that Páll was open-minded, like his wife. "And..." He looked at Dooku, then Maglor. "We got a place in Akureyri, since the cabin is a bit small for three people."  
  
"Oh, so you're moving out?"  
  
Sören nodded. "But even though we won't be neighbors anymore, Nico and I still count you as friends. We'd like to still get together, have you guys over for dinner -"  
  
"Oh same here," Páll said. "Maybe after you guys have had a chance to settle in, you can come by and I'll grill for you."  
  
"His steaks are really good," Sören said to Maglor. Then Sören said to Páll, "You know how you keep mentioning wanting to learn guitar? Alejandro teaches classes at my studio, now." It felt so strange, referring to Maglor by his alias these days, and Sören worried about slipping, the way he did in the elevator at the hotel in Reykjavik last week.  
  
"Jæja? I might finally have to take some classes, then."  
  
"I'll also accept children as students, if either of your kids wants to learn," Maglor said.  
  
"Brilliant. Though I think Sigurjón is more interested in piano -"  
  
"I teach that too."  
  
Maglor went over class schedule and cost with Páll, and then Páll showed them more pictures, of concerts he'd been to in the States, which got Páll and Maglor talking about music, while Sören listened on with amusement at their mutual disdain for auto-tuned pop and "kids these days".  
  
Finally Páll asked, "Did anything else interesting happen?"  
  
"Well..." Maglor looked off to the side. "You might want to get Auli neutered."  
  
"Oh no." Páll's eyes widened. "Oh  _no_. Did he..."  
  
"I'm sorry," Maglor said. "He has puppies coming sometime in the fall. They won't be purebred. I told the owner of the, um... Auli's conquest..." Páll laughed out loud at this, and Vigdís shook with silent amusement. "That I'd pay for vet bills. I have first pick of the litter, which is fine by me because I got a bit attached to your dog."  
  
"Can we get one of Auli's pups?" Sólveig started tugging at her father's shirt. "Can we get a puppy?"  
  
"Oh god," Páll said, laughing. "I think one dog is enough. But you can visit with theirs!"  
  
"How is your cat going to take it?" Vigdís asked Sören.  
  
"He seems to be all right around Auli," Sören said, "but Auli is also a grown dog. No idea how he'll be with a puppy. I think the new living situation is going to be a bit of an adjustment for him." Sören realized he could be talking about he, Dooku, and Maglor living together as well - it was one thing to visit and sleep over, another thing for the three to be sharing a house.  
  
" _Þetta reddast,_ " Páll said.  
  
" _Þetta reddast,_ " Sören agreed.  
  
  
_  
  
The next order of business was Maglor returning his Jaguar to the rental, and he got in Sören's jeep when that was done. Dooku presented him with a spare set of keys to his own jeep.  
  
"Your neighbors are very, very nice," Maglor said.  
  
"I told you." Sören felt a little pang, realizing he'd be leaving them behind eventually if he accepted Vanimórë's offer of immortality. He'd miss Vigdís's kindness and maternal fussing, and Páll's brash loudness and good cheer. Sólveig and Sigurjón were seven and nine respectively - if they had another seven years in Akureyri before moving, he'd get to see them to age fourteen and sixteen, but that would be it. He wouldn't get to see them become adults, university, career, children...  
  
Maglor reached up from the back seat to pat Sören's shoulder, feeling it across their bond. "I know."  
  
Sören put his hand over Maglor's, keeping the other hand on the wheel. There was no way to  _Þetta reddast_  this away, as he'd done in the early days of his move to London, as he'd done when he moved back to Akureyri to start his life over again. He'd had precious few genuine friends over his life, and somehow the idea of losing Vigdís and Páll made the consequences of immortality even more real to him, because there was at least the chance that his family members would accept Vanimórë's blood down the road. This...  
  
As if on cue, Sören's cell phone went off, vibrating as it played " _Ra-Ra Rasputin, Lover of the Russian Queen, there was a cat that really was gone | Ra-Ra Rasputin, Russia's Greatest Love Machine, it was a shame how he carried on!_ "  
  
Sören used the Force to pull the phone out of his pocket as he maneuvered the jeep to the side of the road, not wanting to talk and drive at the same time. "Jæja?" he answered, and then remembered Vanimórë wasn't Icelandic, so he followed up with, "Hello."  
  
"Sören, hello. Is this a bad time?"  
  
"I'm driving, but I just pulled over. What's up?"  
  
"How is the move coming along?"  
  
"We'll be spending our first night in the new place tomorrow."  
  
"Would you like me to come by tomorrow or Sunday? I'll be leaving on Wednesday."  
  
Sören swallowed hard, not wanting to be reminded that Vanimórë was leaving. "Tomorrow night is fine, if the gentlemen don't have an objection...?" He looked at Dooku, who reached over and patted him, and then looked at Maglor in the rear-view mirror, who gave a resigned shrug. "How does 7 PM sound? You can have dinner with us."  
  
"I'll see you then. Have a good evening."  
  
Sören looked at Maglor in the rear-view mirror again. "He's leaving on Wednesday."  
  
Maglor nodded.  
  
There wasn't the wall of explosive rage from Maglor at the mere mention of Vanimórë like there once had been, which Sören supposed was a sign of progress, though Maglor still seemed somewhat uncomfortable with him. An uneasy truce, Sören supposed he could call it. It was better than nothing, but Sören wished they could become friends, somehow. Sören decided not to go there and risk an argument when they already had the stress of moving. "What are your plans for this evening?" Sören asked.  
  
Maglor said, "I thought I'd go to the new place and spend the night cleaning and moving furniture, get everything ready for us, if that's OK."  
  
"That's OK! You'd still be welcome to come back to the cabin if you want to sleep there -"  
  
"If I come back to the cabin we know what's going to happen and I've been walking funny all day," Maglor said, with a mischievous grin in the rear-view mirror that made Sören grin, too, giving Dooku a naughty look, since Dooku had been directly responsible for that; Dooku looked down, blushing, with a small, smug smile of his own. "All play and no work is as bad as all work and no play - I want the place to be livable, functional, for us. Besides, the two of you haven't had a lot of time to yourselves, and it's OK with me if you take that time now and again."  
  
Sören nodded. " _Takk._  I think it's important if we, you know, do stuff as couples as well as a triad. You and me, you and Nico, me and Nico, in addition to you, me, and Nico together. It'll make our relationship stronger."  
  
"I agree. Though I wouldn't mind hearing the delicious details when you and Nicolae..."  
  
Sören laughed. "I wouldn't mind pics or video when you and Nico..."  
  
Dooku facepalmed, shaking with silent laughter, his flush deepening. "Sören..."  
  
"What?" Sören's eyebrows went up, amused at Dooku blushing, looking a little scandalized. "What's wrong with appreciating how fucking hot my husbands are together?"  
  
There it was again, that word  _husbands_ , even though they hadn't had a commitment ceremony yet, and even with one, polygamy wasn't legal in Iceland. It just slipped out. But it felt right to say. Sören felt himself smiling at it.  
  
Sören and Dooku dropped Maglor off at the house in Akureyri, lingering to hug and kiss him. "We'll see you tomorrow morning, já?" Sören asked, nuzzling him.  
  
"You can sleep in, if it's afternoon that's fine," Maglor said.  
  
"OK, well, whenever... we'll see you tomorrow." Despite Sören's dislike of mornings and his preference to sleep in on weekends when he didn't have classes at the studio, he felt like there was enough happening that his body wouldn't let him sleep very late tomorrow.  
  
But that also depended a lot on what Dooku had in store for him this evening; Sören gave him an expectant look as he got back in the jeep, and when Dooku glanced at him with heat in his eyes, where Sören could tell he was already planning, Sören felt himself crinkling his nose and biting his lower lip. Dooku responded to that by kissing him hard.  
  
Sören felt like delaying the gratification a little while longer, and doing what had become something of a ritual for him before starting new chapters in life. "You OK with us going to the Goðafoss for awhile?"  
  
Dooku nodded. "I had a feeling you would ask that."  
  
"You know me too well."  
  
They were quiet on the way to the falls, and quiet once they arrived. After they got out of the jeep, they walked hand-in-hand, to get as far as they could to the edge. It was just them, and the roar of the crashing waters. Dooku finally turned to Sören, feeling the weight on him across their bond - all the changes, all that was about to change, sooner or later, somehow. Actions and inactions and consequences.  
  
"It feels so strange," Sören said finally, "coming here, after what we saw in the glass."  
  
He was referring to the vision of Odin adding to the abuse of the Valar, responsible for the deaths of both his parents... and the history of the Goðafoss - that it had been here where the lawspeaker Þorgeir Ljósvetningagoði had thrown his idols of the Norse gods, officially converting Iceland to Christianity.  
  
"And it's why I had a feeling you would want to come here, eventually," Dooku said, looking at Sören, then looking into the falls. "You have a lot to process. A lot to consider."  
  
"I have  _too much_  to process,  _too much_  to consider." Sören could feel the anger rising in him again as he remembered the visions, how each of his parents died, the truth of how his mother had sent away her sister and brother to try to keep them safe, being lesser gifted in the Force. What could have been, if his mother had lived, or if Gitta had been able to fight for custody of him and his siblings. His mother's final sacrifice, hitting Odin in the eye so he couldn't look at Sören and his siblings anymore, which was undoubtedly why they were still alive now, hadn't endured even worse than what they had. That last act of power had cost her life. A god, going after a woman and her children, to try to avoid a prophecy that wasn't even set in stone... a god foolish enough to ensure that prophecy would happen, one way or another.  
  
He thought of Fëanor's death at the hands of Balrogs, the way he'd gone up in flames, like a phoenix. He thought of what he'd seen across his bond with Dooku of Fingolfin's death, tragic and magnificent. The way Fingolfin had charged Morgoth, one Elf against one Dark Lord. Though Elves were immortal in the sense of not aging, and hard to kill, he had died nonetheless. The Noldor had been on their way to godhood, but not close enough. He thought of Vanimórë mentioning he had ascended - he was a living god - and wondered if receiving the blood of a god would make a difference this time around. If he'd be able to stand against his larger foes, two entire pantheons.  
  
He thought of how his life would change, becoming immortal. All that he would lose. And he thought of how much he'd lost, already. How much his entire family had lost, and suffered.  
  
He thought of the Norse mythology he'd learned in school, of Odin hanging himself on Yggdrasil, the World Tree,  _sacrifice myself to myself_ , to take up the runes and uncover their mysteries, their power. Wodanaz, who in the glass had ascended to power by killing gods, taking their powers, gaining enough power to become the All-Father, the sacrifice the World Tree demanded. He wondered if he could take Odin's powers by killing him, if he could take his army, his ravens, his runes, if that would be enough to stand against the Valar.   
  
But he would have to sacrifice all that he was now, all that he had now - his art career, his friends, his home. He would only have Dooku and Maglor, that he could be certain of. So much else was... uncertain.  
  
_sacrifice myself to myself_  
  
Sören took a deep breath.  
  
Dooku took his hand again.  
  
"I hate this," Sören said.  
  
"We all hate it." Dooku squeezed his hand. "Whatever our crimes, the response was disproportionate. And it is beyond disturbing that the world, mankind, is in the grip of such... madness. When Master Yodha warned me about religion, many years ago, telling me that the gods were not benevolent, I took it with a grain of salt - I chose to believe there weren't any gods, really. But  _this_  is far worse than what he told me."  
  
"It's fucking terrifying." Sören swallowed hard. "Looking into the falls, it's, like...  _symbolic_  of whatever is ahead of us, whichever decision we make. It's a long way down to the bottom, and either way, the gods are down there."  
  
"Ostensibly. I don't know how those idol statues have held up all this time."  
  
"Shit gets found in the bottom of the sea all the time, there's probably  _something_  remaining down there." And then, Sören remembered his aunt Katrín's funeral, and what Margrét had done once she was buried, the grave erected. He found himself unbuttoning and unzipping his jeans.  
  
"What... are you doing?" Dooku asked.  
  
"HEY! ODIN!" Sören screamed at the sky. He took out his cock, and aimed into the falls, pissing. "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE! MISS ME WITH THAT BINDING OF FENRIR, YOU ONE-EYED PIECE OF SHIT!"  
  
Dooku facepalmed, shaking with silent laughter; a few minutes later he wiped a tear from his eye. "Dammit, Sören," he wheezed.  
  
"Wooo, that felt good," Sören said, zipping his jeans back up. "I needed to go, too."  
  
Sören put on the hard rock and metal station on the drive back to the cabin. He wasn't  _quite_  satisfied - he doubted anything other than Odin's head on a platter would satisfy him - but he felt oddly pleased with himself, to have done something defiant.  
  
It seemed to please Dooku, too - after Sören went to the bathroom to wash up and change into pajamas, Dooku was waiting for him on the bed, propped up on one elbow, naked and erect.  
  
"My, what do we have here?" Sören asked, climbing onto the bed, climbing over him for a kiss, his own body responding to the sight of him, the passion between them.  
  
"Admiring you," Dooku said. He stroked Sören's face, his curls, love in his dark eyes. "You... being you." He chuckled again, and Sören could see the memory of what he'd done at the falls a short while ago across their bond. "Your audacity. I always loved that about you... Fëanor." His voice was husky with emotion, as he spoke the ancient name... the true name, Sören's soul. "My spirit of fire." He kissed Sören deep and hard.  
  
Sören kissed him back, fingers playing through the silver chest hair, teasingly brushing a nipple. "Ñolofinwë."  
  
Even now, in a human body, with silver hair and beard, dark eyes, the lines of age on his face, his beloved brother-lover was here, and it seemed that the light of the silver-blue eyes that had so entranced him long ago, was the light of his soul, still shining.  
  
Sören pushed Dooku back onto the pillows, kissing him again and again. He used the Force to reach for their lube, and poured it over Dooku's cock, wanting to feel him inside, needing to feel his  _soulmate_. "Ñolo," Sören rasped between kisses, straddling Dooku's hips. "Ñolo.  _Ñolo._ "  
  
"Fëanáro."  
  
Sören sank down, and threw back his head and cried "Ñolo!" when he was filled to the hilt, joined with his love, one flesh. They took each other's hands and Sören rode slowly, panting "Ñolo... Ñolo..." in time with the roll of his hips, the slide of Dooku's hands over his body, making him tremble.  
  
" _Fëanáro._ " Dooku's voice was more insistent now, the hunger in his eyes, almost desperate, mirroring the longing in Sören's own heart.  
  
_It's been too long, without you._  Sören stroked his face, eyes misting with tears.  
  
Dooku took Sören's hand and kissed it.  _I'm right here. I am_  right here,  _and nothing,_ no one _is going to take you from me again, is going to rip us apart from each other, ever again._  
  
Sören was sobbing now, but he kept riding. "Ñolo. I need you, my Ñolofinwë, I need..."  
  
"I need  _you._ " Dooku pulled Sören to him, kissed his forehead, where his "third eye" would be. "I was so lost without you. Then, and now. But we're together now."  
  
"Ñolo." Their foreheads touched; Dooku was crying a little too. Their noses slid together, their mouths met once more.  _Ñolo, my brother, blood of my blood._  
  
"I love you." Dooku was thrusting into him, setting the pace harder, faster, and Sören grabbed his hips, holding on like he was riding a bull. "I  _love_  you. I love  _you._ "  
  
"I love you so much..." Sören reached out and pulled him close, held him tight, held on as his hips bucked, riding him hard. "I love you, love you,  _love you_ , Ñolofinwë..."  
  
Dooku sobbed into his shoulder, continuing to thrust, even harder now, and Sören held him as tight as he could. Sören cried out when he felt Dooku's teeth in his shoulder, pleasure-pain, and Dooku took Sören's face and kissed him as hard as he could, both of them moaning into the kiss.  
  
"They couldn't stop us from finding our way back to each other," Dooku said. "Because we were made for each other. We  _belong_. You are mine, always, and I am yours."  
  
Sören kissed him again, hard. "I am yours, my Ñolofinwë... and you are  _mine_." He bit Dooku's lower lip hard enough to draw blood, tasting it as they kissed, and kissed. They were getting closer now, Sören could feel it, riding and riding, Dooku's cock hitting that spot inside him like it was custom-built for him.  
  
"I need you with me, Fëanor." Their eyes met, Dooku's dark eyes pleading. "Please. Stay with me."  
  
And it seemed, then, that the decision was made.  _My son needs me. My brother needs me. The rest of my family needs to be free from the curse, to not go through even worse, to be safe, and I can only give them that if I ascend, if I sacrifice what I am, to become what I was...  
  
...to sacrifice what I was, to become what I am.  
  
Þetta reddast._  
  
"Fëanor." They kissed again; Sören loved the way Dooku moaned into the kiss, feeling through their bond how he was right on that edge, ready to come.  
  
Sören moaned back, also right there, needing to explode, but he needed, needed,  _needed_  the blinding glory of sex, their passion,  _just a minute more, don't stop, right THERE just like THAT_ , needed to  _fuck_  -  
  
and at last, Dooku's deep, velvet voice, commanding him. "Sören. Fëanor. Come for me." Eyes compelling his. " _Burn for me._ "  
  
Sören screamed, shattering, erupting, spurting over Dooku's chest and stomach, the throbbing contractions giving way to a shuddery sigh and his breath taken away. He felt Dooku shoot into him, calling out " _Fëanor_ " as he climaxed, sounding both present and far away, here and across time.  
  
They kissed once more, sobbing together, clinging to each other, shuddering at the delicious pleasure of their release, and then the deep, bone-deep, soul-deep comfort of gliding into bliss together, in each other's arms, one inside the other,  _one_.  
  
Somehow, they ended up laying back on the pillows, still holding each other. Sören stretched like a cat waking up from a nap and looked at the clock - his orgasm had been strong enough to make him pass out after. Dooku was resting inside him, and he opened his eyes when he felt Sören stirring, smiling at him, petting him fondly.  
  
"Hey." Sören pet him back, smiling back.  
  
"Hay is for horses."  
  
"And horses are for your mom."  
  
Dooku buried his face into the pillow for a moment, shaking with silent laughter. When he tilted his face back to Sören his face was red. "Sören... why are you like this?"  
  
Sören kissed the tip of his nose. "I'd say I'm sorry, but -"  
  
A pause. "Hi sorry, but..."  
  
Sören gave him a playful swat, as Dooku shook with laughter again. "That's my line." Sören gave a mock glare. "Thot."  
  
"What..." Dooku pinched the bridge of his nose. "What even is a  _thot_ , you've called me this more than once now, and Macalaurë as well. It's some millennial slang, I take it."  
  
"Pretty much. You can Google shit, can't you?"  
  
Dooku shook his head. "I never thought, when I was your age, back in the 1980s, that I would ever feel so old."  
  
"I like you being older. I seem to recall that even though you were younger, you always came off like the older one." Sören stroked his face, skritched the silver whiskers. "You took care of me, back then. You take care of me, now."  
  
Dooku gave him a soft, gentle kiss that quickly turned heated, both men groaning into the kiss; Sören moaned when he felt Dooku stiffen inside him. "Someone has to keep your bratty arse out of trouble," Dooku rasped.  
  
"Or get in trouble with me." Sören grinned.  
  
Dooku responded by swatting Sören's bottom; Sören responded by working his inner muscles around Dooku's cock, clenching and releasing, clenching and releasing invitingly, while he crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip.  
  
With a growl, Dooku rolled Sören over onto his back, and kissed him hard. They took each other's hands as Dooku began moving inside him again, slowly, and Sören rolled his hips back at Dooku. " _Yes,_ " Sören breathed, kissing him back harder.  
  
They made love for a long time, slow and sensual, languid teasing to the edge, bit by bit, lost in each other, the feeling of rightness. It was like discovering each other all over again - this cabin had been where they'd consummated their budding relationship in November 2017, and now, here in their last night of the cabin they were remembering ancient passion, what it was like to love each other as they did long ago. Each push and pull of their bodies was a promise, to never let go again, no matter the cost.  
  
_Half-brother in blood, full brother in heart, lover of my soul._  
  
Those words spoken across their bond as they kissed deeply inflamed them, the tender sensuality giving way to hunger, the consuming fire. Dooku drove into Sören with abandon, and Sören rocked his hips back at them, panting "Yes, yes,  _yes,_ " with every thrust, and then, at last, just "Ñolo... Ñolo..."  
  
They climaxed together, cried out together, trembling at the violent release, even more intense than the one before. They melted together, felt like they were dissolving together into a sea of light, endless joy.  
  
  
_  
  
  
It was Sören's turn to walk funny when they arrived at the cabin in the early afternoon on Saturday.  
  
Sören was impressed by how much Maglor had gotten done. The house wasn't all the way ready yet, there were still bins to unpack, pictures to hang, and the house needed some minor repairs, the rooms needed a fresh coat of paint. But it was already looking like a home.  
  
Sören set down the cat carrier and opened it up, letting Snúdur out, as Dooku took out Snúdur's food and water dishes and set them up in the living room. Snúdur, who had meowed plaintively as he rode in the carrier in the jeep, began to sniff around cautiously, and when he came to Maglor, headbutted his ankle and rubbed against him.  
  
"He thinks you're his," Sören said, and then, with a naughty grin, "He takes after his  _pabbi_  that way."  
  
Maglor facepalmed and then he laughed, pulling Sören close, planting a kiss on the top of Sören's head. "I love you, you know."  
  
"I know. I love you too." Sören looked up at him adoringly, stroking his face, playing with his hair.  
  
"The litter box is set up down the hall near the bathroom," Maglor said. He walked Sören down there, and Sören smiled approvingly that the new litter box was domed, which would reduce smell and mean not having to look at it except when it was time to clean the catbox.  
  
Sören went in the bathroom. Maglor had decorated in a sea theme, which didn't surprise him - seashell and wave motifs, with Dooku's collection of seashells and driftwood and sea glass from the various beaches he'd visited around the world on a white wooden shelf against a wall, the same shelf holding an air freshener. Sören admired the shower curtain, which looked expensive rather than cheap and tacky, well-made, a print of ocean waves. He pulled it back and saw that soap and shampoo had already been set up on a shower rack. The tub looked like it had been freshly scrubbed.  
  
Then Sören realized that had been the same tub where he'd taken baths as a small child. He remembered his mother singing to him in English, the "Rubber Duckie" song from  _Sesame Street_ , which was a top 20 hit in 1970;  _Sesame Street_  had been airing internationally, including on Icelandic television, since the 1970s. Sören had a rubber duckie just like Ernie did, and he would squeak it as his mother sang  
  
_Rubber duckie, you're the one  
You make bath time lots of fun  
Rubber duckie, I'm awfully fond of you_  
  
It was how Sören started learning English, before he learned it in school, as Icelandic schoolchildren did.  
  
He didn't have many memories of his mother, but most of what he remembered involved her singing - "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin was used as a lullaby. Remembering himself as a small child, taking a bath with his rubber duck as his mother sang to him, brought tears to his eyes now, a hot lump in his throat.  
  
He ran the sink to splash cold water on his face, and took a few deep breaths. But it didn't quite work, and when he came out of the bathroom, his eyes were still burning with tears. Maglor was on his knees on the hall floor - there was the sound of sand being kicked around inside the litter box, and when Snúdur came out of the dome down the ramp, Maglor started petting him. "That's a good boy, finding your box right away, yes you are." Snúdur purred loudly, stopping to enjoy the pettings. "Yes, you're a good kitty, yes, you're such a good fuzzy little baby kitty, yes you are."  
  
Sören let out a little laugh, watching them, and Maglor looked up at Sören. "Oh, hi," he said, looking somewhat sheepish at being caught talking baby talk to the cat.  
  
"Hi yourself," Sören said, grinning. He walked over to Maglor, took his hands, and pulled him up, even though Maglor didn't need help getting up.  
  
Snúdur gave them a look as if to say  _how dare you interrupt my worship_ , and then slurked off. Sören and Maglor stood there in the hallway, and then Maglor touched Sören's face.  
  
"You're crying?" he asked, concern in his eyes.  
  
"A little." Sören didn't deny it. "This place... holds a few memories for me."  
  
"I imagine so." Maglor sighed, nodding.  
  
Sören looked at the blank walls of the hall. "Could use a few paintings."  _Could use a distraction, choosing them and hanging them up._  "Let's go see what we've got, já?"  
  
There was a stack of Sören's canvases, things that weren't hanging up at the studio or that he hadn't sold for one reason for another, as well as the paintings Dooku had bought from him in London. Sören and Maglor chose four paintings, to be hung at different intervals on the walls, and they'd find some sort of decor to go between them.  
  
Picking out the paintings for the hall got Sören in the mood to do so for the rest of the house. Two paintings were hung above the mantle in the fireplace, two more on two walls of the living room. Then Sören sat on the new, plush-looking couch, both to try out the new furniture and to make sure it looked all right. Snúdur hopped up beside him as Sören took the rest of it in - the matching armchairs for guests, the Icelandic-knit throws on the backs of the chairs, the dark wood and glass-topped coffee table, dark wooden bookshelves that would be filled soon, a hat and coat rack, a shoe rack, a sword rack that held Dooku's fencing rapier and Maglor's sword - the sword  _he_  had made, as Fëanor, back in the First Age - which had a tier for one more sword.  
  
Sören walked through the rest of the house again. There were three bedrooms. Sören, Dooku, and Maglor only needed one, the room that had the king-sized bed, covered with a dark blue duvet. One of the two bedrooms would be a guest room, in the event any of the family came to visit. The other was being turned into a combination art and music studio - the bins of Sören's art supplies were already in there, waiting to be unloaded, and Maglor's harp was out of its case, parked in the center of the room, with a small stool beside it. Sören could already feel the power in the room, mental images of he and Maglor working together as they once had, Maglor composing and playing as he painted feverishly - Sören smiled at the little nest set up in a corner, mattress pads, blankets and pillows, anticipating the way they'd make love for hours when they were ready for a break from the storm of creation.  
  
Maglor's hand was on his shoulder, and Sören tilted his face so they could kiss.  
  
Sören went back to his pile of canvases, and picked out three for their bedroom. One was a painting he'd done in late 2017, of he and Dooku in a pool of water, naked though the painting only showed them from the waist up, kissing underneath the Northern Lights, as they had in the Nature Baths at Mývatn. The other two were the paintings Sören had made in 2015 to process his grief for "Alejandro", during his first few months in London, before he and Justin got together - paintings that Justin had called "utter shite" when he'd seen them, paintings Sören had to hide in Frankie's safekeeping for them to not be destroyed; there was the one of Maglor as a merman, playing harp - before Sören had known Maglor wasn't human and could play the harp - to himself, shipwrecked on the black sand beach of Reynisfjara. The second, Maglor had human legs, coated with seed, laying in the sand with Sören astride him, taking his cock, both of them in ecstasy.  
  
Sören remembered that ecstasy between them, matched by no one except Dooku, years later. Back then, Sören felt like he understood what ancient mystics were talking about when they reported religious experiences. "The earth moved" was a cliche, and yet, when they had made love together, it was the truth. Sören had tried to capture that with his brush, the ineffable, the ephemeral, a tribute to the love that had given him wings to fly, as an artist, and had continued haunting him long after it was gone. Very few people had seen these two paintings, not just because "Alejandro" had been reserved at pictures of himself, but because of how intimate they were. Frankie, Justin, Dooku, and Maglor had been the only four people to ever lay eyes on them. Showing it to Justin had been a mistake - showing  _any_  of his art to Justin had been a mistake, but he'd tried to open up to Justin about his past history, hoped that the intimacy of sharing his art would build emotional connection between them. Instead...  
  
Tears stung Sören's eyes again.  _Your art’s ugly, stupid, it’ll never sell, why do you bother with it?_  
  
"I wonder if there was the faintest recognition when he saw you," Sören said, as Maglor sat on the bed and Sören hung the merman painting. "He said these were shite."  
  
"Justin?" Maglor's voice was a hush.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"...Why did you..."  
  
Sören shrugged. "Trying to connect."  
  
"'Pearls before swine', I think Christ said," Maglor said. "Except that's an insult to swine. Though he did squeal like a pig, at the end."  
  
Sören chuckled despite himself. Then he said, gesturing to the more explicit of the two paintings with Maglor, "In hindsight, probably he thought they were shite because it was clear I was enjoying your cock more than I ever enjoyed his."  
  
"I should hope so." Then Maglor said, "Back to what you were asking - if he only saw them very quickly, it might not have registered. He was definitely  _surprised_  when he saw me, as I wasn't one of the underage prostitutes he was expecting -"  
  
" _Djöfulsins helvíti._ "  
  
"- but if he'd seen those, maybe in the back of his mind, perhaps it added to his surprise, the shock of recognition. Regardless, I did mention you to him, let him know it was why he was going to die."  
  
The tears he'd been holding back started to come, then. Sören finished hanging the paintings, and then he walked over to Maglor and sat on the bed next to him, and Maglor reached out to hold him.  
  
"Hey," he said.  
  
"Thank you." Sören looked up at him. "I know a lot of people are willing to die for their partners, but... you were willing to kill for me. I..." He reached up and stroked Maglor's face. "I..." He couldn't make words, couldn't find the right words to say.  
  
Maglor took his hand and kissed it. "Sören. If I'd known, then, what was going on - he would have died a lot sooner. And I don't think I would have been able to resist you. Needing to take you back. I am so, so sorry that I left in the first place, and I am sorry that I wasn't there when all that happened -"  
  
Sören kissed him. "We're here now."  
  
"We are."  
  
"Maglor..." Sören took a deep breath. "Van is coming, in a few hours." He looked at the alarm clock on one of the dressers - it was almost 4 PM.  
  
"I know," Maglor said, nodding. "You made plans with him yesterday, I was there when he called."  
  
"No, it's." Sören met his eyes. "You were willing to kill for me, and, Maglor, I am willing to  _live_  for you. My decision has been made."  
  
Maglor's mouth opened slightly - Sören knew that even though there had always been the possibility he'd say yes to immortality, since it was offered, it was one thing to acknowledge it might happen, and another thing for it to be imminent. Finally Maglor nodded and said, "Only if you are very, very sure. I've warned you what this life is going to be like. Forever does not guarantee happiness - it guarantees quite a lot of the opposite."  
  
"But you were alone," Sören said. "You will never be alone again."  
  
"Don't commit yourself to something you don't really want just because you think you're doing me a favor, Sören. Obligation breeds resentment -"  
  
"For fuck's sake, Maglor." Sören kissed him hard, hard enough that they were breathless, trying to catch their breath when they pulled away. "I want to be with you. Is that all right?"  
  
It took a moment, and Maglor nodded. "Yeah, it's all right."  
  
"I love you. And it's been  _so long_." Sören didn't just mean the five years they were apart, in this life, but the many, many years from when Maglor rejected Fëanor to try to live by the Laws for the sake of his wife Fanari, the years following Fëanor's death, and at last, wandering out into the world of Men to try to find his son, deeply and utterly alone, desolate. They were wounded for each other, ached for each other, and it was time for healing.  
  
It was Maglor's turn to start crying, now. They held each other, crying together, rocking each other, petting each other, flushing the wounds with their tears. After sitting on the edge of the bed for awhile they lay back against the pillows, Sören curled up on Maglor's chest, in his arms, one of Sören's hands on Maglor's heart, the other stroking his hair. Maglor was still rocking him, the tears less intense but still flowing. With a chirp, Snúdur hopped up on the bed and walked over to them, tail high in the air in greeting, and then he lay down, paws resting on both of them, kneading and purring. The sound of Snúdur's purrs began to soothe Sören, a little.  
  
Dooku stood in the doorway to the bedroom. "We need some food in this house so I'm running to the store. Any preferences for what we eat tonight?"  
  
Sören needed some levity, and gave him a saucy look. Dooku rolled his eyes, but shook with quiet laughter. "Dammit, Sören, I mean  _food_ ," Dooku said. His cheeks were flushed, as Sören gave him the mental image of the three naked with Vanimórë, wanting to test the waters for later.  
  
"Something you can grill," Sören said. "And we should probably have, like, some sort of vegetable with it."  
  
"All right. I'll be back in a bit. Are you both all right?"  
  
"Not really, but we'll be OK."  
  
Dooku nodded, and strode off. They heard the front door close. Snúdur had rolled over for belly rubs, which Sören and Maglor were both giving him, as the cat flexed his paws, making swimming motions in the air.  
  
"Most cats don't like their bellies rubbed but he's very trusting," Sören said. "He trusted me right away. Like I felt safe with you right away. And Nico."  
  
"He knew who he belonged to." A pause. "You knew who you belonged to."  
  
"Yes." Sören looked up at Maglor. "We belong  _together_. We  _belong_  together. We're going to do this, and we're going to get it right this time."  
  
Maglor started crying again. "Hells, Sören."  
  
Sören's tears came again too, at the sight of him. Snúdur got up and climbed onto Maglor's chest - two of his paws were on Maglor's sternum, with Snúdur's ass in his face, making Maglor cry out, "Oh Hells, what the  _fuck_ , cat," as Sören's tears turned to giggles, before the cat settled down on Maglor's chest, right in Sören's face. Snúdur started to lick Sören's face like he was a cat, licking the tears.  
  
"Awwwwwww." Sören skritched the cat behind the ears. "My baby. Our baby. We have a child now, Maglor."  
  
"I... I see."  
  
"Might be Nico's too, with all that fur."  
  
Maglor facepalmed, laughing. "Sören..."  
  
The cat stopped grooming him, laying on Maglor lazily. Sören snuggled up, and one of Maglor's hands stroked Snúdur, the other playing with Sören's curls. At last, when Sören was calm, Maglor began to sing to him.  
  
_There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold  
And she's buying a stairway to heaven.  
When she gets there she knows, if the stores are all closed  
With a word she can get what she came for.  
Ooh, ooh, and she's buying a stairway to heaven.  
_  
  
  
_  
  
"Sören, Macalaurë... Vanimórë is here."  
  
They had taken a nap together, apparently. Snúdur had long since wandered off. Sören and Maglor sat up; Sören felt groggy, and Maglor helped him off the bed and down the hall. Vanimórë was sitting in an armchair, with Snúdur up on the ottoman, getting pettings.  
  
There was a round table and set of four steel chairs outside, in addition to the wooden table and chairs in the kitchen. Dooku got the grill going, and Sören saw that he was making skewers, chicken with peppers, mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and squash; Sören was once again grateful there were greenhouses in Iceland so the cost of produce wasn't astronomical.  
  
"I see you're settling in nicely," Vanimórë said.  
  
"Yes, thank you again for buying this place," Sören said. "It was very generous of you."  
  
"You should know that, with my departure at hand in a few days, I am leaving you with a reserve. Most of it in offshore bank accounts." He handed Sören a business card, and then pulled out a flip phone, attached to a charger. "This is my handler, Clarissa - please do call her Charlie, she prefers it. She's based in London. I'd like one of you - Sören, Maglor, Dooku, it doesn't matter - to give her a call on that phone in the not too distant future, no greater than a week or two, to introduce yourself and touch base with her - she's been informed as much as I feel the need to inform her, so she will be expecting your call. If you need  _anything_  that requires a non-trivial sum of money -" He took out a small book from his pocket and looked at it. "One hundred thirty thousand ISK, which is roughly a thousand US dollars or 820 pounds sterling give or take, depending on the current rise and fall of the exchange rate... I would prefer you get that money from her. If you need to leave the country temporarily for any reason, visiting family for example... let her arrange it. If there is an emergency, let her help, or she will send someone out who can. That includes if there's a body, if you have to kill someone in self-defense."  
  
"If..." Sören's eyes widened. "Come on, how likely is that to happen?"  
  
"More likely than you think. I cannot predict how the Dagorath is going to impact things here, but there is a non-zero chance of it increasing a sense of unrest and instability around the world, even in a place like this with a low crime rate. I would rather assume contingencies than be unprepared for them." Vanimórë let that sink in and put the book back in his pocket before he said, finally, "She will also help you safely relocate when the time comes."  
  
"I have handlers," Maglor said.  
  
"No you don't," Vanimórë said, his gaze challenging Maglor's. "Not anymore."  
  
"That..." Maglor exhaled sharply. "That was not your right, Vanimórë. They were taking care of things fine for the last few years -"  
  
"You now have two other people as part of the package," Vanimórë said, "and as you know, that makes matters considerably more complicated. I did not trust your current set of handlers to be able to take on an additional two clients, and make arrangements for a party of three, without issue or incident. I do trust Charlie."  
  
"Will we need to meet her in person?" Sören asked.  
  
"Eventually, probably before the end of the year, possibly before the end of next month, she'll be by. She will go over some things that are best not discussed over the phone, even using a burner like the one I gave you. Warning you now, she does prefer to have advance notice of... events... and having to scramble to make things happen in a short period of time makes her testy." Vanimórë grinned. "I regularly try her patience."  
  
"Not just hers," Maglor muttered into his champagne.  
  
"Oh, Macalaurë." Vanimórë's grin was directed at him now. "Perhaps if you were less  _entertaining_  to provoke... and less attractive when provoked..."  
  
Sören laughed. "He makes  _that face._ " He patted Dooku, as he walked past. "So does he. It's so sexy."  
  
Maglor glared in Sören and Vanimórë's direction, and they both mimed a kiss at the same time. Then Sören's laughter rang out, and he grabbed Vanimórë to kiss him. "Great minds." He twined a lock of Vanimórë's hair around his finger. "It's like we're related."  
  
Vanimórë said nothing, but sipped his champagne, and though he kept his expression neutral, the way his eyes went from mirth to seriousness made the hair on the back of Sören's arms and neck stand on end.  
  
_Oh shit._  
  
Dooku's voice snapped his attention away from that. "It's almost ready," Dooku said.  
  
_Yes, it seems like a lot of things are 'almost ready'._  Sören stole another glance at Vanimórë as he used the Force to pour everyone another glass of champagne.  
  
  
_  
  
  
After dinner, Sören took Vanimórë on the tour of the house. Before they reached the master bedroom, they lingered in the studio. Vanimórë looked at the harp with the same sort of reverence Sören felt when he saw it, and that drew Maglor out, who watched them looking at his instrument.  
  
"Maglor," Sören asked, "would you play for us?"  
  
"Please," Vanimórë said, holding Maglor's gaze.  
  
Maglor hesitated, considered, and then he nodded, sitting on the stool, as Sören and Vanimórë took a seat on the "nest" in the corner of the studio, against the wall, knees touching, taking each other's hands.  
  
Maglor began to play, and sing, and the sound led Dooku - who had been unpacking - down the hall, to stand in the doorway, watching. Sören recognized it, something that Maglor had played before when they lived together in Reykjavik, back when he was "Alejandro", and Sören assumed the words were glossolalia like Liz Fraser of Cocteau Twins. It was different to hear it on the harp instead of guitar or piano... and he saw Dooku's eyes widen, also knowing what it was, which surprised him. Dooku spoke into Sören's mind, explaining,  _He's played this for me before. Once, when he was very drunk._  
  
_The Noldolantë,_  Vanimórë spoke into both their minds.  
  
As Maglor's fingers plucked the harp, and his rich low tenor sang in Elvish, Sören  _saw_. He'd seen bits and pieces, when Maglor played it before, but it was like seeing a trailer or excerpts instead of a whole film, and now, here it was. Fëanor, his glory, Maglor's love for him. Maglor's brothers, their happiness. The Silmarils. Melkor's treachery. Rebellion, kinslaying, exile. Fëanor killed in a swarm of Balrogs, going up in flame. Fingolfin, mad with grief, challenging the Dark Lord to single combat, wounding him, wounded himself, getting back up and fighting until he could fight no more. Tindómion, last Star of the House of Fëanor, Maglor's last hope, and his love for Gil-Galad. Gil-Galad's fall in battle, and Tindómion walking away into the world of Men in his grief. Maglor following him, but never finding him. Wandering. Alone. Guilt. Shame. Regret. Memories. Spirits, and their Songs, swirling around him like a fog. All the world a wasteland of despair.  
  
It usually ended here, but now there was something new.  
  
Maglor was taken prisoner, tortured, wanting to die. Vanimórë finding him, the storm of their passion together, Maglor hating him for giving him his life back, and yet, as he went on, continuing to walk alone, continuing to hate Vanimórë for not letting him die, wandering lonely and in pain... there was Tindómion, in Iceland. And then Tindómion's spirit, guiding him. The minor chords lifted, becoming something brighter, as Sören continued to see - Maglor finding his father and uncle again, at the edge of the world, the land of volcanoes and blazing aurora skies like fire in winter, being brought back to life in their love, his fire, almost extinguished, lit once more. The ecstasy. The laughter. The return of hope. The three walking together, the fog lifting, sun parting the clouds. Finding most of his family, reborn. A wall of fire coming against the Valar, the Doom of the Noldor becoming the Doom of the Valar, transmuted like alchemy through Fëanorion fire. A curse upon the Valar, a threat... a promise.  
  
When Maglor was done, his hands were shaking and he was breathing hard.  
  
Dooku went right to him and kissed him hard, and then Sören got up and came to him to kiss him as well. Dooku and Sören were both tearing up.  
  
Vanimórë rose more slowly, and approached more slowly. He did not cry, but he was visibly moved. He came close to Maglor - hesitating, rather than just taking what he wanted, letting Maglor decide.  
  
Maglor pulled Vanimórë close and kissed him passionately, and watching that made Sören's stirring cock become fully erect. Sören kissed Dooku, smiling with amusement into the kiss as he felt Dooku also hard against him.  
  
Sören took Dooku's hand, and then Vanimórë's hand, with Maglor's hand settling over both of theirs, Maglor's other hand in Dooku's hand. "Come on," Sören said, marching to the bedroom. "Tonight, we  _burn._ "  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören and Dooku kissed as they undressed each other, and Maglor and Vanimórë kissed as they undressed each other as well. When all four men were naked, Sören kissed Dooku, Maglor, and Vanimórë in turn, and Dooku and Maglor kissed while Vanimórë and Sören kissed some more.  
  
Dooku's face burned when he saw Vanimórë looking at him, and he made a shy little noise that Sören found adorable.  
  
"It's all right, I understand if you're not used to me," Vanimórë assured him. "We don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with."  
  
Sören felt a little relief across their bond. Sören was slightly disappointed, as he enjoyed the sight of his men together - and felt a little self-conscious that he was thinking of Vanimórë as one of  _his men_ , too - but he also understood that Dooku had lived like a monk for most of his life and having two partners was still an adjustment for him. Dooku didn't do casual sex, and he didn't know Vanimórë well enough for it not to be casual, even with the way Vanimórë had helped them and looked out for them, which included Dooku, too.  
  
_Maybe someday._  The flicker of a mental image across Sören's mind's eye, he, Maglor, Dooku, Vanimórë,  _Kol_ , and a sixth male that he didn't quite recognize, the man's face buried in Kol's ass as silvery-white hair flooded out over the floor, and they were in front of a fireplace that was not this one in the house in Akureyri, Christmas decorations twinkling in the firelight. Before Sören could wonder too much about that, Dooku and Maglor were pulling him towards the bed.  
  
"What do we want?" Sören asked.  
  
"Yes," Vanimórë said.  
  
Sören threw his head back and laughed.  
  
They continued to just kiss for awhile, Sören and Dooku, Sören and Maglor, Dooku and Maglor, Vanimórë and Maglor, Sören and Vanimórë. Then Sören pushed Maglor against the pillows and he and Dooku explored him together with lips and tongues and fingers, as Vanimórë licked and sucked Sören's cock. Vanimórë and Dooku changed places, with Dooku's tongue in Sören's channel as well, making Sören moan and rock his hips, stroking himself until Dooku swatted his hand away, stroking him more gently.  
  
Maglor pushed Sören down, and he and Vanimórë worked Sören over, until Sören was arching, writhing, begging. Every now and again he saw Dooku pleasuring Maglor, who was already leaking precum, and that just added to Sören's arousal. His arousal intensified when Dooku and Vanimórë switched places, and now it was Dooku and Maglor all over him, with Vanimórë sucking Maglor, rimming him, feasting on him as Maglor moaned against Sören's flesh, almost singing.  
  
It was Dooku's turn. Sören and Maglor kissed and caressed him everywhere, lapped at his cock together, and Vanimórë went back and forth between Sören and Maglor, sucking their cocks, tonguing their openings, taking both of their cocks in his mouth, greedy for them. Sören was so close to climax, steeling himself to hold back, it almost  _hurt_ , but he knew if he came now he was going to pass out for some time after, and if he held off it would be even more intense. Sensing him on that edge, Vanimórë licked slowly, and he dropped his mental shielding enough for Sören to feel him reveling in the sounds Sören made, the way Sören trembled at every exquisite, sensual stroke of his tongue, brush of his fingers. The sight of Dooku's body, tasting it, feeling it, watching Maglor enjoy it with him... made it so much better.  
  
Sören finally grabbed Vanimórë by his hair, pulling him up to kiss him roughly, surprised by the aggression in him, which seemed to inflame Vanimórë further, kissing him back hard and hungry. Sören shoved him onto the pillows, laughing, and Vanimórë laughed too, pulling Sören down for another deep kiss. "That's it, beauty. Show us that passion in you."  
  
Sören and Maglor took their sweet time teasing him, as Dooku went back and forth between them, bringing them to that edge again. Sören loved watching Vanimórë undone, losing that iron control, putty in their hands, beneath their tongues, moaning louder and louder, quivering as Sören and Maglor kissed, licked, nibbled, stroked, every now and again kissing each other, Sören smiling at the heat in Vanimórë's eyes as he watched.  
  
At last, Vanimórë seized Maglor for a kiss, and Maglor did not resist but kissed him back with hunger. Sören and Dooku kissed, and now Sören found himself pushing Dooku down, climbing over him, getting into a sixty-nine position. Vanimórë and Maglor did the same, laying next to them. Reaching that edge of climax again and again, to pull back and tease some more, licking slowly.  
  
After awhile they traded, Sören and Vanimórë feasting on each other while Dooku and Maglor did the same. Sören took Vanimórë's hands and squeezed them, not yet ready to say those three little words, but he wanted Vanimórë to feel the warmth, the acceptance... the way that Sören felt he belonged there with them, too, didn't want him to leave.  
  
It wasn't long after that moment, that Vanimórë came up and kissed Sören, stroking his face tenderly, looking into his eyes, as Sören put his hand on Vanimórë's heart. Dooku and Maglor stopped what they were doing, and sat up, flushed and breathing hard, looking at the two of them expectantly.  
  
Vanimórë took the hand Sören had on his heart, and Maglor's bad hand in his other hand. "I want both of you inside me," he said. "I want to feel you both... Fëanor, Macalaurë. Father and son. Flame and Song."  
  
Sören and Maglor looked at each other, and then nodded. "We need to get you ready for that," Sören said, pushing Vanimórë back onto the pillows, more gently than before. Sören remembered what Vanimórë had said back in 2015 - he'd done everything, and had everything done to him - and that implied he had experience bottoming, though Vanimórë had only topped him thus far. Sören got the sense this was an act of trust for him, the same way it had been for Dooku to give himself to Maglor that way.  
  
Then Sören looked at Dooku. "While I'm taking him, I want you inside me, Ñolo. Because you're mine." Sören kissed Dooku, who trembled against him, and Sören could sense across their bond how much he  _loved_  that. "I have a request."  
  
Dooku raised an eyebrow.  
  
"When you're ready to come, don't do it inside me, pull out and come over where I can see you and come all over me." Sören's eyes pleaded. He remembered Fingolfin's dislike of sharing him with anyone who wasn't Maglor, back then, and Fëanor had enjoyed the tension between them - the possessiveness made him preen. Reborn, changed through their experiences, Dooku was accepting of him with other lovers, understanding Sören's appetites and not taking it personally, and Sören didn't want to be inconsiderate to the man he loved, understanding the need for boundaries, respecting his partner's feelings. And, Sören was a bit more submissive in this life, than he was back then - though he had craved submission sometimes then too, as well, and Fingolfin and Maglor were the only men he'd allow to "tame" him.  
  
"Wow," Dooku said, eyes widening.  
  
Sören nodded. "Like marking me as your territory. Because..." He kissed Dooku again. "I'm yours, too. No matter who else I'm with, that will never change."  
  
Dooku grabbed him, pulling him close, and kissed him hard, almost violently. Understanding what Sören was saying,  _feeling_  it. Sören's hands were on Dooku's heart now.  
  
_You see? It's always been you I come home to, my Ñolofinwë._  Sören smiled into the kiss.  _Thot._  
  
Dooku swatted Sören's bottom.  _Brat._  
  
Sören threw his arms around Dooku and kissed him again.  
  
Then Sören moved back over to Vanimórë. He got down between Vanimórë's legs, paying some teasing attention to Vanimórë's cock, sucking slowly and licking, while Dooku and Maglor kissed and caressed each other, and then Sören's tongue was inside Vanimórë, working its magic. Maglor kissed Vanimórë as Sören ate him - he groaned at the sight of Maglor gently stroking Vanimórë's cock. After licking the sweet spot inside him for awhile, going back and forth between slow and fast swirls of his tongue, Sören went back to Vanimórë's cock, paying attention to the head as he used the Force to fetch the lubricant. One slick finger went into him, then two, then three.  
  
"We'll fit better if I can get my whole hand inside," Sören rasped.  
  
"Please."  
  
Sören's cock jolted at that. He'd fisted someone exactly once, during his party days, but the man had enjoyed it, and Sören remembered how. He eased in, going slowly, not wanting to cause pain even with the copious amount of lube he was using. Maglor's eyes widened as they met Sören's, and across their bond, Sören could see Maglor being curious about Sören being on the receiving end of it sometime, and Sören shuddered at that.  
  
They had so many things to try, the three of them. So much exploring to do. So much  _adventure_. Sex would never get old, not even when they were revisiting the same old favorites.  
  
Sören enjoyed the sounds Vanimórë made, louder as he teased him by licking, nibbling, sucking on his thighs, up the seam of his crotch. When Vanimórë was working his hips, fucking himself on Sören's hand, Sören knew it was time.  
  
The four assembled on the bed, laying on their sides. Sören and Vanimórë faced each other, and Maglor was behind Vanimórë, Dooku behind Sören. Lube was passed around, and Sören watched as Maglor pushed into Vanimórë, holding him, kissing and licking his neck, then tilting his face to kiss his mouth when he was all the way inside. Sören watched Maglor take a few thrusts, idly stroking himself, and then he guided the tip of his cock over.  
  
When they were both inside him, Vanimórë cried out, and then it was Sören's turn to cry out when Dooku slid into him. They found their rhythm, going achingly slowly at first, Sören and Maglor taking turns kissing Vanimórë, leaning over Vanimórë's shoulder to kiss each other, Sören tilting his face to kiss Dooku, groaning as Dooku kissed his neck, his nape, his shoulder, the sweet spot where neck and shoulder met, knowing what he liked. Sören loved feeling Dooku's arms around him, the strong wall of Dooku's chest against his back, the pelt teasing his sensitive skin. Sören loved the heat in Maglor's eyes, in Vanimórë's eyes,  _feeling_  the heat, like they had set a wildfire between them and it was building.  
  
At last it was burning out of control. Sören and Maglor were savage together, and Vanimórë loved it, grabbing Sören white-knuckled, nails in him, teeth in him, moaning, panting "Yes," as they held nothing back, the only thing existing was  _hunger_. Dooku drove into Sören as well, matching the rhythm of Sören's thrusts, the feel of him exquisite, delicious, adding to the pleasure of his cock rubbing against Maglor's inside Vanimórë's slick heat. Pleasure, sensation, lust, longing, the song of fire calling to fire, blood calling to blood -  _You are all mine._ Sören was biting Vanimórë back too, licking, soothing with his tongue, then his lips, brushing tenderly.  _You all belong to me. And I belong to all of you._  
  
Sören's arms were around Vanimórë and what he could reach of Maglor, holding them tight, never wanting to let go. "Mine," Sören heard himself growling. "Mine... mine..."  
  
"Yes," Maglor panted. "Hells, yes, Ada..."  
  
It was when Sören and Maglor kissed again, that set Sören off, climaxing, and his climax intensified as he, Maglor, and Vanimórë kissed together, feeling Maglor's cock shooting onto his cock, Vanimórë shooting over him. Dooku slipped out of him, and an instant later Sören watched the delicious sight of him coming, felt the hot seed over his chest and shoulder and neck, grinned at the "pearl necklace". Another pulse of pleasure, and Sören moaned, toes and fingers curling involuntarily. He kissed Vanimórë again, passionately, then more gently, stroking his hair, his face.  
  
Dooku got behind Sören again, snuggling against him, and Sören gave him a sweet little kiss, patting him.  _Takk, ástin mín._  
  
They lay there, resting for awhile - at some point Dooku was on his back, and Sören cuddling into his chest, and then Dooku reached out and pulled Vanimórë there as well, stroking his hair fondly, with Maglor laying next to Dooku, their legs braiding, nuzzling each other as Sören and Vanimórë gave each other little kisses.  
  
It was Dooku who broke the silence. "That was... really something."  
  
"Yes." Vanimórë sat up a little and stroked Sören's face with one hand, Maglor's face with the other. He kissed Sören's brow, then Maglor's. "That was quite a gift. Thank you."  
  
"Thank  _you_ ," Sören said.  
  
"I will always treasure this." He took Sören's hands and kissed them. "I will always treasure  _you._ "  
  
Sören blinked back tears. He smiled and pressed his hands to Vanimórë's heart for a moment, then he patted Vanimórë's shoulder. " _Elskaði einn,_ " he said without thinking about it. "It's time."  
  
"For...?"  
  
"For you know what."  
  
"No, I don't know what."  
  
Sören had a feeling Vanimórë knew perfectly goddamn well  _what_ , but due to the severity of what it was, he was making them explicitly request it, a full consent, which he understood and respected. Before he could say it, Dooku, a little silly post-orgasm, joked, "Ve need ze blaaaad toniiight."  
  
"Yes, Dracula needs your blood over here," Sören said, stroking Dooku's beard, grinning at him. Then he sobered up as he said, "Me too."


	43. Imperishable

**Imperishable**

 

Laying together on the bed, still naked, Sören and Dooku watched anxiously as Vanimórë produced a dagger and let the blood drip into two shot glasses over on the dresser. Just before he could add whisky, Sören looked at Snúdur, who had hopped up on the bed, deciding to join them. He remembered how brokenhearted Dooku had been when he'd mentioned the death of his cat Dragos, and Sören blurted out, on impulse, "Van, may I ask you for a favor?"  
  
Vanimórë turned around, and nodded acknowledgment.  
  
"Jæja, so your blood... anyone who drinks it will become immortal, já?"  
  
"Correct."  
  
"Can we give some to my cat?" Sören reached out to touch Vanimórë's mind, show him how important Snúdur was to him, and how much Dooku had grieved for Dragos. "I can put it on a cat treat or something to give it to him."  
  
Vanimórë laughed softly. "All right. You're very sweet."  
  
Dooku gave Sören an adoring smile - across their bond, Sören knew Dooku knew Sören was thinking of Dragos - and Sören patted him.  _I know Snúdur is like your cat, too, just like Dragos was like mine. I don't want you to have to go through losing him, too, and I don't want to lose my baby either. "Just get another cat" - they're not replaceable, really._  
  
Dooku gave him a little kiss.  _I love you._  
  
Sören kissed him back.  _I know._  
  
Maglor came out of the bathroom, and Sören asked him, "Can you go to the kitchen and get the bag of cat treats?" Maglor nodded.  
  
When Maglor came back, Snúdur responded to just the sight of the bag, meowing. Sören laughed. "Yes, you know what time it is, don't you?" Sören used the Force to pass the bag to Vanimórë, who coated a treat with a drop of his blood, and then held the treat out, for Snúdur to hop off the bed with a chirp and trot right over, tail high in the air.  
  
"You're going to be his new favorite person, giving him a treat," Sören said.  
  
Maglor sat on the edge of the bed. "Wait, you're making the cat immortal too?"  
  
Vanimórë nodded solemnly. "He asked. I see no reason to refuse."  
  
"Your handler, this Charlie person, she can help us move the cat when it's time...?" Sören raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Cat, dog, any pets you have, any members of your household, that's her job."  
  
"I'm getting a dog," Maglor said, after a moment. "Auli... had a bit of fun one afternoon, and I told the other dog's owner I'd pay for vet care. I've been promised the pick of the litter. But the puppy isn't here..."  
  
"Kol has a few vials in safekeeping," Vanimórë said, "so when it's time, let him know what it's for."  
  
"Who, or what, is Kol?" Maglor's brow furrowed.  
  
"An old friend."  
  
Sören folded his arms. "I don't like keeping secrets from my sister and Frankie..."  
  
"He intends on telling them what he is, when the time is right. And his intent is to stay here, with them." Vanimórë picked up the cat, who had eaten the treat, and put him on the bed. "It will work out."  
  
"It better." Sören glowered.  
  
Vanimórë laughed, went back to pour the whisky into the glasses, and brought it over, giving Sören a kiss when he put the shot glass in his hand.  
  
Sören hesitated, looking into the amber liquid with the blood floating in it, knowing there was no going back. Dooku was also hesitating, but Sören knew it was waiting for him to drink, rather than holding back out of doubt.  
  
Vanimórë held out his arms and gave a little bow, a dramatic flourish that made Sören laugh, moreso when he realized it reminded him of the odd religious service he'd attended as a child, or seeing things on television. Sören made the Sign of the Cross in the air and quipped, "In the name of the Father," pointing to himself, "the Son," pointing to Maglor, and then, looking down at the streaks across his torso where Dooku had come all over him, and a naughty look at Dooku, "the Holy Spigot."  
  
Dooku facepalmed, shaking with silent, full-body laughter. "Dear  _god_ , Sören."  
  
"Bottoms up." Sören knocked back the shot glass.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Snúdur fell asleep first, shortly after consuming the treat. Sören leaned on Dooku, watching the cat curl up for a nap, and a few minutes after taking the blood he was aware he felt tired, too. He snuggled on Dooku's shoulder in a muzzy half-conscious state for a little while, feeling deeply relaxed, and then he was out.  
  
And then, it started.  
  
Visions replayed from the  _palantir_. Fëanor's life, and death. Miriel, led away to become Brynhildur the Valkyrie, then cast out, made flesh. The death of his father Sigurd, attacked by Odin's sorcery. Then Brynhildur's death. Sören's life, his trauma - the abuse from his aunt and uncle, the bullying in school, losing patients as a med student, the abuse and rape from Justin.   
  
An anvil, Fëanor hammering steel on a forge. Refining diamonds with fire, cutting them into brilliant facets.  
  
Seeing Fëanor, then - being both inside his mind, as the same person, and standing outside and seeing himself as he once was, long ago. Looking into the feverish, molten silver eyes... a touch that was like being burned.  
  
Suddenly, Sören was somewhere that felt like nowhere and everywhere all at once, a garden that seemed to exist outside of space and time. He and Dooku were both there, laying in the grass, and he saw Fëanor and Fingolfin approaching them, as magnificent as Maglor was fully unglamoured. Sören felt a surge of lust looking at Fingolfin, the hair falling to his knees, the pride in his silver-blue eyes, the high cheekbones, the sleek, hard body defined through the cut of his blue robes. He saw heat in Fingolfin's own gaze, just as he saw heat in Fëanor's eyes looking at Dooku, heat returned.  
  
But it was not Fingolfin who pulled him up and led him forth, it was Fëanor, the Silmarils bright on the circlet across his brow. Sören couldn't stop looking at them, feeling compelled to touch, and Fëanor paused, turned him, and took his hands.  
  
_Yes, you may. They are_  yours _, after all._  
  
He guided Sören's hands, and Sören's fingers traced one of the stones, in awe. It did not burn him, it felt soft and inviting, like touching silk.  
  
A memory of the touch of his mother, long ago, petting him to sleep. Love, warmth, acceptance.  
  
Sören snatched his hand back.  
  
_You think I would reject you?_    
  
Flickers of the past again, Justin's words.  _Your art's ugly, stupid._  Einar's words.  _You'll never amount to anything._  
  
Fëanor's hands on his face.  _I am you, and you are me. I could no more reject you than I could reject my limbs._  A kiss on his brow.  _You are me, and you are_  mine.  _The Valar may have cursed others to see you as a worthless lump of coal, but I know you are a diamond, and you have been cut into the hardest of forms. You will shatter them._  
  
Fëanor took the crown from his head, and put it on Sören's. He took Sören's hand and they continued walking, to something that looked like a gate. Fëanor waved his hand.  
  
The weave of worlds, and seeing them, one at a time. Floating in the Thames, dead at Justin's hand. Another reality where Maglor rescued him, nursed him back to health, gave him pleasure again. Another reality where he had green hair and pointy ears, beardless, a more feminine face, standing on the shore with a pyramid-looking structure in the distance, and for once, this version of him somehow  _knew_  him, felt him there, reached out to his mind.  
  
Startled, Sören shoved it out.  _Get thee gone._  
  
_That's Sev. Well, one of the Sevs. He means well._  Fëanor patted him.  
  
The worlds kept coming and coming, faster and faster. Too fast to keep up with, though Sören knew he would remember it later. He was feeling dizzy, too hot, much too hot, and shaking; Fëanor's arms were around him to steady him. Sören felt almost as if he were going to fall through the gate, sucked in to space.  
  
Sören remembered the crossroads vision he'd had this past summer solstice. The fourth road he had not seen, back then, too overwhelmed - he went down it now, saw himself and Claire with two small children, a boy and a girl. Maglor and Dooku. Maglor giving the children piggyback rides, Sören and Claire chasing each other giggling, Sören and Dooku stealing a kiss in a kitchen as Dooku took a break from cooking. A dog, two cats... turtles?  
  
_Copernicus and Moriel._  Fëanor grinned.  
  
He was pulled back, and onto the road he'd taken before. He remembered the WELCOME TO CORVALLIS highway sign. Another sign, Oregon State University, at a building. Sören as a professor, wearing glasses, teaching art, Claire as his assistant. Maglor - also wearing wire-rimmed glasses - on bended knee on the beach, proposing to him, the two getting married in outlandish getups at some place called Voodoo Donut. Claire watching them kiss with lust in her eyes. Later, a threesome. Later, Sören and Dooku driving in the rain, kissing for the first time, making love.  
  
Sören's head was pounding, and he closed his eyes, feeling himself sink down. He felt Fëanor take the crown from his head, and when he looked up Fëanor was wearing the crown of Silmarils again.  
  
_Why have you showed me all of this?_  Sören asked.  
  
_To show you that you find your way to them across worlds, across universes. The Valar could not keep you from that, and if they cannot keep you from that... they are not as strong as they think they are._  
  
_Why would they want to keep me from them, in particular?_  
  
Fëanor laughed.  _Why, indeed? It is as if they fear your ability to love - my ability to love - can be used as a weapon of war._  
  
Sören found himself curious.  _Does Van know about any of this...?_  
  
_He's seen two of those worlds, ones where you're dead, and Claire is with Maglor. He's intervened in a third but I don't think he's seen the outcome of that._  An unspoken  _he died_ , and Sören cringed, seeing a mental image of fire, and then Fëanor gently nudged it away.  _He has been preoccupied with the Dagorath, but it should perhaps be stressed to him to take some time and look upon you elsewhere. The more we can break the Doom in other realities, the better things will be everywhere._  
  
_What about this reality? What do I do, now that I am becoming immortal?_  
  
Fëanor grinned, and his grin was predatory, like that of a wolf.  _You remind the Valar and the Old Gods who you are._  What  _they are dealing with. That the day of reckoning is at hand._  
  
_How..._  
  
_Claim the Silmarils. That is your first step._  
  
_And I ask you again,_  how.  
  
Fëanor took his hands, and kissed them.  _You already know, even if you think you don't, you know_  here.  
  
His hands covering Sören's, they pressed to his heart.  
  
Then Fëanor drew him in for a kiss, hands roaming over him.  
  
  
_  
  
  
"Oh _Hells_ , thank fuck."  
  
Sören blinked his eyes open slowly. Maglor was sitting beside him. Sören was drenched with sweat - the sheets were soaked with it. Maglor pressed a bottle of Gatorade to his lips. "Drink."  
  
"You're awake?" Dooku's voice sounded slurred, as he rolled over. Dooku looked pale under his olive complexion, also glistening with sweat, though considerably less than Sören. His eyes were glassy.  
  
"What happened?" Sören rubbed his face, and took the bottle from Maglor to take another sip, almost dropping it - even a bottle of Gatorade felt like it weighed a ton, he was so weak and exhausted.  
  
"You ran a very, very high fever. Both of you ran fevers, but yours was worse, Sören." Maglor had a thermometer out. "You were 40 C at one point."  
  
" _Jesus._ "  
  
"I told him no paramedics, no hospital," Vanimórë said. "Even though I myself have never seen such a reaction to my blood, and it was rather concerning."  
  
"We might have argued about it," Maglor said, looking down, a little sheepish.  
  
"It's fine. I was getting worried that you were starting to  _like me_  and that takes the spice out of things considerably." Vanimórë leered.  
  
"Go to the Hells, Vanimórë," Maglor said, but not unkindly.  
  
Sören grinned, despite how awful he felt. The Gatorade tasted like ambrosia, he was so parched with thirst. He noticed a stack of used washcloths next to him.  
  
"Tried to bring your fever down with cool washcloths," Maglor said. "Didn't work so well."  
  
"I think it's coming down, I feel less hot now," Sören said. "Clammy and gross from the sweat. I need a shower..."  
  
"You need to rest first," Maglor said.  
  
"I was already sleeping -"  
  
"That wasn't resting. Both of you were tossing and turning and saying some very strange things."  
  
Dooku was nursing his own bottle of Gatorade. "I had very strange dreams." He looked at Sören. "I imagine you did as well...?"  
  
Sören nodded.  
  
"We can talk about all of that tomorrow," Vanimórë said. "Sleep first."  
  
"But -"  
  
"He's right." Maglor gave Sören a stern look, and before Sören could protest further, Maglor's hand was on his arm, and Sören felt like he was being wrapped in a cozy blanket and rocked. Maglor leaned in and brushed a kiss across his brow, and Sören's eyes closed.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören woke up in the late afternoon, feeling like he'd slept for days, even though it was only twelve hours. Even that was longer than he usually slept, especially in the summertime when his brain had a harder time getting to and staying asleep with the near-constant light of the midnight sun.  
  
Sören felt even more exhausted, despite having slept so long, and every bone in his body ached. He sat up weakly on the edge of the bed, making noises. Dooku was already out of bed and somewhere; Maglor walked in the room when he heard Sören.  
  
"OK, you're up now, good."  
  
"I need a shower."  
  
Sören was almost too weak to stand, and Maglor helped him into the shower, and then, noticing Sören having to lean against the wall, he took his own clothes off and joined him. But there was nothing sexy about it, even though Sören noticed Maglor went hard at the sight of him naked. Sören leaned on him and Maglor gently lathered him, making soothing noises. When he helped Sören out of the shower he playfully swatted Sören's bottom before wrapping a towel around him.  
  
Sören changed into a T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Dooku walked into the room in his usual pair of black silk pajamas, and Sören saw he was coming to check on him. They stood there for a moment, exchanging a long, meaningful glance, and then they held each other.  
  
"How are you holding up?" Sören asked, his voice raspy from sleep and needing more fluid.  
  
"Ugh. I need another nap. I feel guilty, I should cook something -"  
  
"Don't worry about dinner," Maglor said. "You get the rest you need."  
  
Maglor changed the sheets on the bed, as Sören and Dooku leaned on each other.  
  
_Did you meet -_  Dooku raised an eyebrow.  
  
_Us?_  Sören nodded. He looked off to the side.  _I might have fucked myself literally._  
  
Dooku facepalmed, and Sören could tell he was trying not to laugh out loud. Maglor gave them a curious look, and Sören said, "I'll tell you later."  
  
When the bed was changed and freshly made, Maglor turned down the covers and Dooku crawled in; Maglor pulled a sheet over him, and Maglor sat on one side of Dooku and Sören the other, giving him slow, gentle rubs. Dooku flexed like a cat, with a little contented smile. "That's nice," he murmured into the pillow.  
  
Then from the edge of the bed, Sören looked at the clock again - it was early evening now - and he realized it was Sunday, and he had classes tomorrow. He was going to have to teach in this state.  
  
Before he could say something about it, a knife came flying towards him, and before he knew what was happening, Sören caught it, then another one. He was surprised by how quickly he responded, remembering playing dodge ball as a child and getting hit in the face or worse.   
Vanimórë walked into the bedroom, applauding.  
  
"What the  _fuck_  was that?" Sören yelled, feeling a little miffed.  
  
"Testing your reflexes," Vanimórë said. "The blood will have catalyzed you, made your powers stronger."  
  
" _Really._ " Sören frowned. "That includes everything...?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Sören looked at Dooku, who wasn't quite asleep yet. "I'm thinking of a number between one and seventy."  
  
Dooku snorted into the pillow, laughing out loud. Then he cheekily responded, "420."  
  
"That sounds... actually really good right about now." Sören got up.  
  
He rolled a joint in the living room while Maglor put together a light dinner in the kitchen, using leftover chicken to add to a green salad. When it was ready, Sören and Vanimórë went to the kitchen to eat, with some of the salad put away for Dooku for later. Then they sat in the living room together, with Snúdur purring away on Sören's lap, Maglor sitting next to him, the two petting the cat as Vanimórë looked on fondly in the armchair. Sören lit the joint he rolled, puffed, and passed to Maglor, who took a hit and passed it back to Sören - it amused Sören that Maglor was more casual about smoking pot now, toking up with him when offered rather than refusing. Sören offered it to Vanimórë.  
  
"I don't," Vanimórë said.  
  
"You should," Sören muttered. Then he said, more loudly, "I need it, for the conversation we're about to have."  
  
Maglor got up, went to the kitchen, and came back with more Gatorade for Sören. "You lost a lot of fluid last night sweating, you need to rehydrate," Maglor said.  
  
" _Takk._ " Sören gave him a little kiss, and passed the joint to him again as he took a swig of Gatorade. Then Sören leaned back against the couch. "I don't even know where to begin."  
  
"Begin with what is easiest for you to explain," Vanimórë said.  
  
Sören let out a dry laugh, shaking his head. "The problem is,  _none of it is._ " Sören puffed on the joint again, and passed it back to Maglor, holding the smoke in his lungs for a moment before blowing out a smoke ring, coughing hard until Maglor pointed to the Gatorade, glaring.  
  
"All right." Sören sipped at the drink, and then, giving his cat a few slow strokes, he took a deep breath. "I met myself last night." At the puzzled look from Maglor, he explained, "I met Fëanor."  
  
Maglor's jaw dropped.  
  
"We were in a garden of some kind..."  
  
"The Timeless Halls," Vanimórë said.  
  
"You know this place," Sören said.  
  
Vanimórë nodded.  
  
"Wait," Maglor said. "When you told me that my family and I had ascended..."  
  
"This is where you are," Vanimórë said.  
  
Maglor took a deep drag on the joint, coughed violently, and Sören passed his bottle of Gatorade, putting out what was now the half-joint to save the rest for another time.  
  
"How do you know about this place?" Sören raised an eyebrow.  
  
"It's where I was before I came to this world," Vanimórë said.  
  
Both of Sören's eyebrows went up. "How did you get here...?"  
  
Maglor cut in. " _I watched you die_ , in the War of the Ring."  
  
Sören turned to Maglor, shocked. "You were in the War of the Ring -"  
  
_How do you think Tolkien knows so much about it, exactly?_  Their eyes met, then Maglor turned back to Vanimórë. "So when I saw you show up again here..."  
  
"Yes, it is as I told you, I came from another universe."  
  
"That's the other thing," Sören said. "When I met Fëanor, he had a few things to show me." The buzz from the marijuana was starting to kick in, and Sören erupted into a gigglefit. "Like his cock. All those times people told me to go fuck myself, well." Sören giggled harder. "I mean technically, I've been fucking myself for years, masturbating, but -"  
  
"Sören." Maglor gave him a stern look, but Sören could tell across their bond he was flustered, thinking of the delicious mental images, silently cursing he wasn't there.  
  
_Well, you kind of were, but never mind that right now._  
  
Maglor's eyebrows shot up, and his mouth dropped open. Sören cleared his throat, took another nip at the bottle of Gatorade - lips wrapping around it suggestively - and this time his hand reached to rub Maglor's thigh instead of to stroke the cat's fur. Then Sören resumed petting Snúdur, who purred loudly.  
  
"So anyway," Sören went on, "Fëanor showed me a bunch of other worlds. I don't remember all of them, or even most of them. I think, like when I saw Fëanor's life play out in the  _palantir_ , that I could recall individual worlds at will, if I sat down and thought about it. But I only paused to get a really good, could-tell-you-right-now look at a few of them."  
  
Vanimórë tilted his head to the side. "When you say he showed you..."  
  
"It was like a gate of some kind...?"  
  
Vanimórë nodded. "I see."  
  
"He says you've only seen two of the worlds besides this one, and something about intervening in a third. Something about that intervention causing you to die."  
  
Vanimórë looked off to the side.  
  
"Apparently though he's been keeping tabs on himself, myself, whatever. I don't know for how long. I don't even know how time flows over there, it felt really different."  
  
"That makes sense," Vanimórë said. "You are relevant to his interests."  
  
"It's so weird, talking about him in the third person, but also being him." Sören scratched his head. "You know what was really weird? Some of those other worlds I saw, it wasn't just that I saw other versions of myself, but I saw him. Like other versions of his life, how his history changed from one reality to the other. Most of the time it was pretty close to canon, or at least the censored version, and sometimes not so much at all."  
  
"The censored version," Maglor laughed. "Yeah, that would about sum it up. There were things I told Tolkien that didn't make it to print, because of his own morals, the sensibilities of the era, and there were some things I felt was better not to tell him altogether."  
  
Sören passed the bottle of Gatorade back to Maglor. "Like your half-sister."  
  
Maglor almost spat.  
  
Sören waited, knowing he had just dropped a fairly large anvil. Though Vanimórë was master of the poker face and  _almost_  showed no reaction to that, there was the faintest tell that hit Sören's suspicions directly on the head. "Maglor, Vanimórë... how are you two related, exactly?"  
  
Vanimórë took a deep breath. He looked at Maglor, and Maglor looked back at him. Then Maglor said, "This is your story to tell, I think."  
  
Vanimórë gave a curt nod. "Very well. My mother is Fëanor's daughter... your daughter."  
  
"So I'm your grandfather." Sören was starting to feel stone sober, despite the marijuana buzz.  
  
"...Yes."  
  
"And Maglor's your uncle..."  
  
"Yes." Maglor was the one who answered, looking off to the side.  
  
"In different realities, she had different mothers," Vanimórë said, "but always you as her sire."  
  
"She's my half-sister Írimë's daughter in this reality," Sören said, thinking of Frankie, remembering the vision he'd had of Fëanor comforting Írimë after her sister-lover Findis fell in battle... feeling those awkward, confusing feelings of attraction to his best friend, not knowing what to do about it, or if he should even do anything at all.  
  
"Yes, the Vanimórë who died in this reality was doubly House of Finwë, his mother born of Fëanor and Írimë. It made for a rather... potent draw to Maglor," Vanimórë said.  
  
"So when I said you hated him because he reminded you of your family," Sören said to Maglor, "I was right...?"  
  
"It was some time from our meeting till much later, when I found out for certain," Maglor said, "but yes, I suppose on some level I did know, could feel it, back then."  
  
"What was my daughter's name?" Sören asked. "I could jog my memory but I had a rough night..."  
  
"Moriel," Vanimórë said.  
  
_Copernicus and Moriel._  Fëanor had been oddly pleased, tickled, by the little tortoises that Sören and Claire were keeping as pets in one of the realities. Sören wondered how they'd come up with that name, and then he saw a vision of himself in a hospital bed, following the suicide attempt in 2004, a girl who bore a resemblance to Margrét but not quite calling  _Father_ , leading him away from light and to a tunnel.  
  
"Sören?  _Sören._  Yoo hoo." Maglor snapped his fingers in Sören's face.  
  
Sören shook his head and blinked. "Wha..."  
  
"You kind of went blank for a couple minutes there." Maglor gave him a concerned look. "You look like you've seen a ghost." He started rubbing Sören's shoulder.  
  
"Not a ghost," Vanimórë said. "What were you seeing?"  
  
"Your mom," Sören said, and for once, he didn't mean  _your mom_  as a joke. "Every time I've attempted suicide, she brought me back to consciousness, but I never knew who she was, in this version of events."  
  
Vanimórë had another tell, the iron mask breaking just  _slightly_ , and Sören wanted to run over and hug him, but he didn't. They weren't done yet.  
  
"There's a reality," Sören said, "where Claire and I own a couple turtles, tortoises, whatever, and one of them is named for her."  
  
"So you've seen you and Claire together..."  
  
Sören nodded. "The four of us. And a couple of kids. There's another world, too, where I got to see it pretty vividly. I don't know where the first one is, where we're keeping the turtles, but the other one is... I saw a highway sign. Corvallis? And I teach art at Oregon State University. Which is so weird because I've never even been to the United States, I don't know how I'd end up there."  
  
"Many things are possible."  
  
"Fëanor said our souls have a way of finding our way to each other," Sören said. "But I know that in two of the worlds you've seen, I'm dead."  
  
Maglor let out a sigh, and nodded. "He told me."  
  
"And in this reality, Claire is dead." Sören scowled. "As happy as I'd like us to be, in this world, there's always going to be something missing -"  
  
"Nothing is ever ended," Vanimórë said. "You were reborn. Claire will be reborn, and you will see her again." Vanimórë looked at Maglor. "You will see your son again. I have promised you, you are going to get what you need."  
  
"I need you to promise me something, too," Sören said. "If you would."  
  
A pause, and Sören continued, "Find us. Don't let this... what happened here... and in those two worlds where you saw Maglor... keep happening. Don't let us keep being ripped apart from each other. Fëanor said the more that the Doom can be broken in other realities, the better it will be everywhere. Fëanor says that my ability to love - his ability to love - is a powerful weapon. If we're going to defeat the forces of evil..."  
  
"I will do what I can." Vanimórë nodded.  
  
"Now," Sören said, "you never did answer my question about how you got here."  
  
"It would be better if I showed you. Let's take a drive."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören was not feeling up to driving, so he got in the passenger seat of Vanimórë's Bentley - in his T-shirt and pajamas and bunny slippers. He was still so exhausted from the night before that he didn't even care about what he looked like.  
  
Vanimórë drove for awhile, in silence, and when they got off at a familiar exit bells went off in Sören's head, his suspicion confirmed when they drove in and Sören saw the Dimmuborgir. "Oh my fucking  _god_ ," Sören said, doubling over in hysterical laughter, even though it wasn't really funny - he felt like he was going a little crazy from all of this.  
  
When Sören calmed down and they got out of the car, Sören said, "My mother said this was where she saw one of the  _huldufólk_ , when she was a little girl -"  
  
"It was me she saw."  
  
Sören's jaw dropped.  
  
"So..." Sören looked at the Dimmuborgir, and back at Vanimórë. "How does this work, exactly?"  
  
Vanimórë took Sören's hand, and walked him into one of the formations, that looked like a gate. Sören had the sense of being surrounded by the starry sky of space, then suddenly everything was long rays of light, and he felt like he was inside of an elevator, dropping, his stomach in his knees and his brain where his stomach should be. When the scenery was back to normal, Sören's legs were shaking, and they were standing at a menhir.  
  
"Welcome to Avebury, United Kingdom," Vanimórë said.  
  
Sören took it all in, and then he had chills.  _I've been here before, but not..._  In his mind's eye he saw himself waking up from a strange bed just before the dawn, going out to the sacred site to watch the sun rise, and there were two dancers dressed as the Holly King and the Oak King, like nothing Sören had ever seen before.  
  
As quickly as the vision had come, it went away. Sören rubbed his face.  
  
He remembered his brother's TED Talk.  
  
_Tonight, I'll be challenging what you think you know about the concept of life on other worlds. No pseudoscience of UFOs - no need to fly at all. Why fly, when you can just walk through a door?_  
  
"Jesus, Dag," Sören said under his breath.  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"Uh." Sören shook his head. Then he looked at Vanimórë. "This isn't the only one, I take it."  
  
"There are Portals all over the world."  
  
"Wherever ancient people had sacred sites...?"  
  
"Yes. Liminal places, places of power. That is where they are." He took Sören's hand again.  
  
There was that dizzying feeling again, and this time they came out at Uluru, which Sören recognized from pictures. It was nine hours and thirty minutes ahead of Reykjavik, so it was the middle of the night, and Vanimórë pointed up - Sören's breath caught as he saw the aurora australis blazing in the sky, green and red and violet.  
  
"Holy  _fuck,_ " Sören gasped. He'd seen the northern lights plenty of times in Iceland, but it amazed him every time and to see it here... his hair stood on end.  
  
After watching the aurora for a few minutes, hand-in-hand, Sören threw his arms around Vanimórë and kissed him hard, and heard himself blurting out, "I love you."  
  
  
_  
  
When they arrived back from the Dimmuborgir, Dooku was up from his nap, he and Maglor talking in the kitchen as Dooku ate.  
  
"I should get going so you can actually rest tonight, since you teach tomorrow," Vanimórë said. lingering at the door.  
  
"You're leaving on Wednesday?"  
  
Vanimórë nodded.  
  
"Don't leave without saying goodbye to me," Sören said. "I'll make sure to clear us some time if you want to pick me up at the studio after my classes are done."  
  
"All right."  
  
Sören hugged him, and they kissed again. Sören nuzzled him, their foreheads close, and then he said, thinking of their earlier conversation, "There's one more thing."  
  
They stepped outside. Sören took a deep breath. "So, I..." He ran a nervous hand through his curls. "I'm pretty slow on the uptake, and all of that. I didn't know Maglor was an Elf, I read the fucking Silmarillion and didn't realize I'm Fëanor, and..." He looked down at his bunny slippers, and back up. "What I guess I'm trying to say is, you mentioned Claire is going to be reborn, and Tindómion, and you act like you  _know this for sure_ , and well... I worry that I'm dense enough, even if my powers are going to be stronger now, that I'll miss the boat, so to speak, if you get what I'm saying."  
  
"I understand your concern," Vanimórë said. "I do feel that if I share too much about the details, you may work so hard to ensure they happen that it gets in the way and ensures it does not..."  
  
"...like how Odin tried to thwart the prophecy of 'Fenrir' and in doing so ensured it would happen and I would kill him," Sören said. "Still wondering how, by the way... but if those portals brought you here from the, uh, god-realm you were in, they could take me to other god-realms, like Asgard...?"  
  
"You can reach Asgard from the Dimmuborgir, but I don't recommend it until you have the Silmarils and you've learned how to fight," Vanimórë said. "So as much as you want Odin's blood... don't attempt that for awhile yet."  
  
"Right," Sören said.  
  
Vanimórë raised an eyebrow, his expression stern with warning. Then he said, "Back to what you were saying about Claire and Tindómion..."  
  
"Sorry, my bad, ADHD moment." Sören made a "flying away" gesture. "Oh, right, on that note... I take it that's always going to be something I have to deal with, immortal or not..."  
  
"It's how you're wired." Vanimórë nodded. "My blood can heal things like cancer, but you're stuck with your neurology and your brain chemistry."  
  
"All right. OK. So... Claire. I get what you're saying about not wanting to give us exact info, but seriously, I'm  _that dense_  that I'd appreciate at least a little clue. Like at least where to be at what time, even if we don't know what we're looking for."  
  
Vanimórë took a deep breath. "Very well." He closed his eyes, and there was a long pause - Sören thought he heard a word that sounded like  _Nemrúshkeraz_  even though Sören had no idea what it was, what it meant. Then Vanimórë said, "Make sure the three of you - you, Dooku, and Maglor - are in France in 2047."  
  
"2047?" Sören's eyes widened with shock. "I'll be... Jesus Christ, I'll be sixty-two, sixty-three..."  
  
Vanimórë chuckled. "You won't look it, or feel it." Then he blew a kiss. "I have to go now, or I won't be able to make myself leave, and you do need rest, beauty."  
  
"OK. Night, Van, and... thank you." Sören blew a kiss back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in seeing what happens in 2047, go read the one-shot [_We'll Always Have Paris_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19357219).


	44. Always

**Always**

 

 

 

Wednesday, August twenty-first came, and Sören felt a heaviness on him as Maglor drove them to the studio, a heaviness that lingered during his classes - enough that more than one student asked "Are you OK?"  
  
It was cloudy in the morning when Sören arrived at the studio, and by the time classes were over it was raining, which Sören found apt, mirroring his mood.  
  
Maglor was still at the studio when Vanimórë's Bentley pulled in. Maglor and Sören paused in the hall, and then Maglor patted his shoulder. "You stay out as late as you need to," he said. "Nicolae and I know you need some time."  
  
Those words floored Sören, as he remembered there was a time in the more recent past when Maglor  _did_  have a problem with them dating. And yes, it happened that Vanimórë was leaving and Sören didn't know when - or even if - they'd see each other again. But Maglor seemed to be less resentful of Vanimórë since the day he'd gone out to where his son's ashes were scattered and Vanimórë and Sören had comforted him after; Maglor had all but said he'd forgiven Vanimórë, though things were still somewhat uneasy between them.  
  
Not so uneasy to keep Sören from asking, "Do you want to come out to the car to say goodbye...?"  
  
"I slipped out for a couple hours late last night to have a few words," Maglor said.  
  
"A few words..." Sören smirked. "Or 'a few words'?" He made air quotes.  
  
Maglor blushed and looked off to the side, with a little guilty smile. "Both."  
  
"You could have gotten pics -"  
  
Maglor smacked Sören's bottom, hard, giving him a mock stern look. "Go, you naughty thing."  
  
Sören leaned in to give him a quick kiss, squeezing Maglor's own ass. "All right. I love you, you know."  
  
"I love you too."  
  
Sören ran through the pouring rain to Vanimórë's Bentley, who handed him a towel when he climbed in. " _Takk_ ," Sören said, toweling off. "Where are we headed?"  
  
"Would you like to have dinner first?"  
  
"Depends on how late you're keeping me."  
  
"I intend on having you home before midnight, if not well before then."  
  
"So no sleeping with -"  
  
"No. I have to leave tonight, Sören, and that's going to make it harder on both of us."  
  
_So this isn't exactly just a fling for him, like it isn't just a fling for me._  Sören thought about asking about the nature of Vanimórë's feelings, after Sören had said "I love you" at Uluru and Vanimórë hadn't said it back - nor had Vanimórë said anything to let him down, and returned the kiss fervently. Sören had been wondering if it was a mistake to blurt it out, and yet, the impulse had been there because it felt  _right_ , and he couldn't say he regretted speaking those words, since it was the truth.  
  
_It still is the truth, whether he loves me too or not._  
  
On the other hand, Sören didn't think Vanimórë would be going out of his way to make the offer of immortality if he felt nothing. Or, for that matter, letting himself be taken - as an abuse survivor Sören could spot trauma in others, and he knew enough about Sauron to know Vanimórë had likely endured horrific things as his son; when he was inside Vanimórë he could sense what an act of trust it was. That meant something, even if it wasn't the kind of something to convince Vanimórë to stay.  
  
Sören gave a little sigh, and Vanimórë squeezed his knee, as if he could pick up on Sören's disappointment that he was, in fact, leaving.  
  
"We can have dinner, I guess," Sören said. "So long as I get enough time to enjoy you for dessert."  
  
"That was ever the plan, beauty."  
  
Sören managed a grin.  
  
  
_  
  
  
They were quiet over dinner at the seafood restaurant, and finally in the car on the way to the hotel, Vanimórë broke the silence.  
  
"Króna for your thoughts."  
  
Sören gave a sad smile. "I'm not sure they're worth that much."  
  
Vanimórë sighed. "I wish you wouldn't put yourself down."  
  
"Sorry. It's an old force of habit, thanks to being told continually that I'm worthless. Though it doesn't help when people keep leaving me." Sören frowned.  
  
Vanimórë also frowned. "Sören, it's not personal, and it's not because of  _you_." The shield was let down just enough that Sören could hear Vanimórë internally swearing at Maglor for the lie he told five years ago when he left Sören. "I have to fight in the Dagor Dagorath, and before the battle, I have to perform reconnaissance and make sure those I am fighting with are ready."  
  
"Do you?" Sören raised an eyebrow. "Do you really  _need_  to go, or -"  
  
"Yes. Sören, I've told you,  _Sauron is my father_. I understand his machinations, so my presence is needed to fight against him and Melkor. I wish I could stay. But I cannot."  
  
Sören looked down, and picked at a loose thread on the hem of his T-shirt. Vanimórë took his hand, and kissed it, meeting his eyes.  
  
"I don't want the last memory I have of you to be so sad," Vanimórë said. "Your smile, your laughter, your sense of fun and optimism - the things Maglor loves about you..."  
  
"It's hard for me to be happy when you're going away. And you say 'last memory' like... we're never going to see each other again?"  
  
"I'll never say never. Nothing is impossible. But it is very unlikely that our paths will cross again."  
  
"Dammit." Sören looked away, choking up. He watched the rain falling, and did not attempt to hide his own tears, echoed in the world around him.  
  
Then he saw that vision again - Christmas in a place that wasn't Akureyri, Christmas in a place that wasn't even properly winter, hot weather, walking around in shorts and complaining about the heat. Lounging at a pool with Vanimórë. Summer rain, enough to justify getting a fire going, stockings and lights hung above the fireplace, six male bodies coupling before the fire...  
  
_That's just wishful thinking, probably._  It also disturbed Sören to think of himself as living somewhere other than Iceland, even though he knew it was inevitable, with the immortal lack of aging requiring moving around.  
  
Sören looked back at Vanimórë with tearful eyes. They were pulling into the hotel now.  
  
Vanimórë let him off at the door, and Sören waited while he parked. He looked down, trying to pull himself together and not doing a very good job of it, and at last Vanimórë was there beside him, taking his face in his hands.  
  
"If my last memory of you cannot be of your happiness," Vanimórë said, "then let it be of your passion." He kissed Sören deeply.  
  
"I think I can manage that," Sören said, kissing him back.  
  
  
_  
  
As soon as they got in the hotel room, they began kissing feverishly, undressing each other. Vanimórë took out the contacts he used in public, and let his hair fall unglamoured, to his ankles.  
  
"You're so beautiful," Sören breathed, his fingers tracing the swirling dark tattoos over his arms.  
  
Kissing some more, they made their way to the bed, and once they lay there they just held each other for a moment, looking into each other's eyes as thunder rolled outside.  
  
Vanimórë stroked Sören's face, and pressed a gentle kiss to his brow. Sören smiled, genuinely.  
  
"I'll miss you," Sören said. He leaned in for a less gentle kiss. "I'll miss this."  
  
"I'll miss you too. And this."  
  
"Where you're going... I'm there...?"  
  
"As Fëanor, yes."  
  
"Tell him I said to shag you senseless one last time before the battle." Sören grinned. "Would have been nice to find a way for both of us to shag you together, at the same time."  
  
Vanimórë laughed and then he kissed Sören harder. "It would have been nice to watch the two of you, while you were in the Timeless Halls."  
  
"Yes, I'm sure it would have." Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. "You'll have to ask him for the details, because I, good sir, am a perfect gentleman."  
  
"If by perfect gentleman you mean teasing brat -"  
  
"Which is something you did not inherit from your grand-sire at all." Sören kissed the tip of his nose, as his fingers strayed to brush a nipple.  
  
Vanimórë rolled Sören onto his back, kissing him with a growl; Sören moaned into the kiss, arching to him, their hard cocks rubbing up together. Sören's hands slid down Vanimórë's back, and Sören kissed him, then after their tongues played together, began kissing his neck, smiling a little as he heard the hitch of Vanimórë's breath, felt Vanimórë pressing into him more insistently, cock caressing cock.  
  
"What would you like?" Sören husked, before taking a lick at his neck.  
  
Their eyes met. "You."  
  
"Welllll, that could be any number of things and you did want to have me back in a somewhat timely fashion..." Sören began playing with his nipple again. "So what would you like to start?"  
  
Vanimórë considered for a moment and then he said, "I want to taste you."  
  
Sören kissed him, and drew his lower lip between his teeth. "Only if I get to taste you, too."  
  
They got into the sixty-nine position, laying on their sides, sucking each other slowly, languidly. Their hands roamed, caressing what they could reach of each other's bodies. Every now and again one let the cock teasingly slip from his mouth, giving it a few licks, before sucking it some more. Vanimórë's hands at last stroked from Sören's thighs to between his legs, one hand resting on Sören's balls to gently cup and rub, the fingers of the other hand brushing the sensitive spot between balls and ass, making Sören moan louder around Vanimórë's cock. Vanimórë paused sucking to lick there, and Sören could feel the smile against his flesh as Sören heard himself whimpering, felt himself writhing, sucking Vanimórë harder, faster. Vanimórë took Sören's cock back in his mouth and his fingers continued to play there, and then, inside him, finding the prostate, rubbing in lazy circles.  
  
Two could play at that game, and Sören's fingers strayed to the same place between Vanimórë's balls and ass, then tracing around the hole.  _Yes?_  
  
_Yes._  
  
Vanimórë moaned as Sören pushed a finger into him, then two. Sören continued sucking as his fingers worked in and out of them, feeling satisfaction when Vanimórë began to roll his hips, gently fucking his mouth, fucking his fingers. Sören felt like teasing some more, so he pulled Vanimórë's cock out of his mouth to lick, reveling in the sounds of his moans, the way the moans vibrated around his own cock in Vanimórë's mouth. Then his tongue slipped into Vanimórë's channel, swirling against the prostate. Soon Vanimórë was doing the same thing, devouring him hungrily, and Sören's own hips were rolling, the probing tongue sending him right to that edge and keeping him there.  
  
They both got close, and before they could come like that, Sören's lips wrapped around Vanimórë's cock once more, fingers playing inside him again. Vanimórë started sucking him again as well, fingering him, and the tension continued to build, throbbing inside and out. Vanimórë rubbed Sören's balls some more, which were tightening, and Sören let out a little whimper of warning, feeling the descent. Vanimórë's hand moved from Sören's balls to take Sören's hand, and they climaxed at the same time, coming in each other's mouths; Sören savored the spicy-sweet taste of him, swallowing all he could, greedily lapping up the rest, giving Vanimórë aftershocks with his tongue.  
  
They came up to kiss each other, tasting themselves on each other, the combined taste of them. "You're delicious," Sören purred.  
  
"So are you."  
  
Vanimórë held him, stroking Sören's curls, and Sören listened to his heartbeat and the steady thrum of the rain outside. Every now and again there was thunder.  
  
One particularly loud clap of thunder, sounding like it was right there, startled Sören enough to let out a little scream, and Vanimórë's arms tightened around him. Sören laughed self-consciously. "God," he said. "No wonder my Viking ancestors thought Thor was real. Well, I guess Thor _is_ real. Hm." He frowned. "I hope he's not complicit in Odin's fuckery, he always seemed like a nice guy in the myths."  
  
"You will have to determine that for yourself... when the time is right. I mean what I tell you, Sören, even though you are immortal now, do not challenge Odin until you have all three Silmarils and you can fight. I don't mean a barroom brawl. I mean actually being able to fight with a sword, knives, those sorts of weapons. He will be expecting you, and you will not have to face  _just_  him - his face as a god of war - but also warriors sworn to him, possibly even other gods. It is a fight you must be fully prepared for, and show no less than the ferocity of a wolf."  
  
"Well, the ferocity is something I already have." With that, Sören took a playful bite at Vanimórë's shoulder, as his nails raked over Vanimórë's chest.  
  
Vanimórë pushed Sören onto his back and bit Sören's neck, which made Sören arch to him, parting his thighs instinctively. But Vanimórë didn't give in to him right away. He worked his way down Sören's body, nails scratching down over the length of him, nibbling, biting, soothing with his tongue. His teeth paid special attention to Sören's nipples, and when Sören's stomach and thighs were nibbled, bit, licked, Sören howled, writhing, panting, "Fuck me, fuck me, Van, please, fuck me..."  
  
"That is what I like to see, beauty. Your passion. Utterly consumed by need -"  
  
"Fuck me FUCKING  _NOW_."  
  
Vanimórë laughed softly, giving tender little kisses to Sören's thighs, before nipping with his teeth some more. Then he paused over Sören's entrance, and his tongue dipped inside, licking Sören very, very slowly, hands sliding from Sören's thighs up over his stomach and chest, playing with the nipple rings. Sören arched again, grabbing his head, moaning as Vanimórë's tongue worked inside him, readying him to be taken.  
  
"Oh, dammit, Van, you fucking tease..."  
  
"Mmmmmm." Vanimórë stopped licking inside him, and licked around his opening again, laughing as Sören whined with frustration. "You are meant to be savored, beauty, and that is what I am doing." He put his tongue back inside Sören, and Sören cried out as his tongue lashed harder, faster.  
  
Finally Vanimórë relented, tongue slipping out of Sören's channel, and he moved up to lick at Sören's cock, lapping up the precum flowing copiously down the shaft. He played with the ring in the head of Sören's cock as his tongue danced on the sensitive frenulum, and Sören moaned and shuddered as he watched Vanimórë's lips wrap around the head of his cock, moaning again as Vanimórë just sucked the head, tongue swirling and lashing around it. Vanimórë's fingers played inside him then, one, two, then three, with Sören rocking his hips. "Fuck me," Sören begged again. "Take me, need you in me..."  
  
Collecting more precum with his tongue, Vanimórë rose to kiss him, and Sören pushed the lube into his hand. Sören moaned into the kisses as Vanimórë poured the lubricant directly into him, fingers played inside him some more, and at last the head of Vanimórë's cock pressed against his opening, and he slid inside, inch by inch.  
  
When Vanimórë bottomed out inside him, they both gasped and shuddered, and kissed passionately as Vanimórë took a moment to rest in him. Then, Sören looked up at him with worship in his eyes as Vanimórë began to stroke away inside him, hips rolling together like the push and pull of the tides. The rain fell harder, and Sören's gaze locked with his, feeling like his very life depended on this, needing Vanimórë to see the love and the awe in his eyes, to feel the love and the awe as he held him within his body, to  _connect_  with him, share this moment that seemed out of space and time, endless pleasure.  
  
It was slow, gentle, tender, sensual, even moreso when Sören withdrew the arms that were holding him and his hands slid everywhere, wanting to touch him, feel him, and was touched in return, the months they'd spent together giving each other a knowledge of just how to make love to each other, knowing where and how they liked to be caressed, teased. It felt like they were melting together, a dreamy haze of desire, Sören taking in every detail and every response like he was studying a work of art, or producing one himself, though he felt Vanimórë was more beautiful than anything he could create.  
  
And then Vanimórë's teeth were on him again, and the hazy sensuality gave way to fevered hunger. Sören bit Vanimórë back, and as he did, he rolled Vanimórë onto his back. Sören began to ride, hips bucking furiously, his nails breaking flesh, and every now and again Sören would lean in to lap the blood, and nip the skin with his teeth, before Vanimórë grabbed his curls, drew him in for kiss after kiss.  
  
"That's it, beauty."  
  
"God." Sören shuddered, and cried out when Vanimórë plucked his nipples, leaned up to nibble them, bite them, lick them, tug the rings with his teeth before his tongue laved some more.  
  
Sören rode him like a wild bull, rode him like he, too, was riding off to war, riding into a storm. The sexual need that burned through him was white-hot like he imagined the Silmarils would be to others, all-consuming, needing to take and take and take, badly needing to come but not able to get enough of Vanimórë's cock inside him, hitting his prostate just right, Vanimórë's hand wrapped around his cock, thumb rubbing the frenulum, bringing him closer and closer.  
  
They kissed again, and Sören heard himself blurt out, "You may be Sauron's son, but you have  _my_  blood.  _My_ seed. You belong to  _me_."  
  
Vanimórë kissed him hard, his nails digging into Sören's back, driving into him, making Sören hold onto him white-knuckled.  
  
"Mine." Sören nibbled his neck. " _Mine_. My blood, my seed, my fire, my soul. And I am going to mark you as mine." With that, Sören stroked himself to the rhythm of Vanimórë's thrusts, and his hips working atop him. Then Vanimórë seized his cock again, Sören's hand on his.   
  
Between the rubbing at his prostate and the stroking of his cock, it didn't take long for Sören to come, letting go with a wild cry as his seed spilled over Vanimórë's chest and stomach. A moment later Sören heard Vanimórë cry out, "Fëanor," and Sören moaned as he felt Vanimórë shooting into him, the hot seed spurting against his throbbing prostate bringing on another delicious orgasmic pulse. Sören felt himself drawn into Vanimórë's arms, and the two kissed deeply before Sören snuggled into his shoulder, trying to catch his breath as his body continued to shake and the climax throbbed and spiralled out.  
  
A few minutes later, they kissed again, and as powerful as Sören's climax had been, he could feel his cock stirring, and Vanimórë's as well. Sören gave a little roll of his hips to encourage a second round, and pouted when Vanimórë pulled out of him. Then, holding his gaze, Vanimórë said softly, "I want you to claim me again. Inside me."  
  
Sören's breath caught. Through Vanimórë's shielding he could see a series of mental images flashing quickly - raped by Sauron, by Melkor, by Orcs, by other hideous creatures. He did not give himself easily. Maglor had been one of the few, which Sören saw also, shivering a little at the mental image of Maglor driving into him, Vanimórë feeling like he was being immolated, eaten alive in the storm of Maglor's passion...  
  
...the storm of fire that was in his blood. Fëanor's blood.  
  
Sören's blood boiled that Vanimórë had been abused - something he'd already suspected, but to see it, feel it... another faint glimpse into the weave of worlds, this one of Moriel, and it was all he could do to not get up from the bed, charge towards the Dimmuborgir, and hunt Sauron and Melkor down himself. Vanimórë's arms tightened around him, steadied him, gaze compelling him, snapping him back to the here and now.  
  
"I need to feel you," Vanimórë said.  
  
Those words tore at Sören's heart. He had been almost crushed, when he'd said  _I love you_  at Uluru and those words had not been said back. But this was something.  
  
This was a lot of something.  
  
Sören kissed him with all the fire that was in him, using the Force to draw the bottle of lube over, but before he could pour it into Vanimórë, he hesitated. He wanted to make this very, very good for him. He found himself kissing, licking, fingers walking over Vanimórë's body, pleased with the way he moaned and trembled. And at last, his head was between Vanimórë's thighs, and his tongue plunged into Vanimórë's opening, teasing him the same way he had been teased, licking slowly, watching Vanimórë's reactions, slowly stroking himself as Vanimórë fell apart, moaning louder and louder, gasping, panting, arching to him, clutching Sören's head.  
  
Sören licked and licked, feasting on him, and when his tongue lashed inside him hard and fast, Sören had to hold himself back from climaxing at the sounds Vanimórë was making, precum dripping down his shaft, lapsing into Elvish. Sören loved it, wanting to do this to him all night - just this, much as his cock ached for release, it was gorgeous, it was  _delicious_  to see him like this, utterly lost in pleasure and passion. Sören silently cursed the time, and slowed his tongue down, taking a few last slow licks before he stopped, then licked around and around Vanimórë's opening, and a few licks at the dripping precum, coming up with a wicked grin on his face.  
  
Vanimórë moaned as Sören worked slick fingers inside him, kissing and nibbling his neck, his shoulder. And then, finally, Vanimórë took Sören's face in his hands and kissed him hard, and as they kissed Sören took him slowly. Like before, Sören took a moment to rest once he was all the way inside.  
  
Sören was slow and gentle, not just to avoid causing pain, but wanting to please him, wanting to make this last. He rained kisses over Vanimórë's face, his neck, his chest. When Sören kissed over Vanimórë's heart, Vanimórë stroked his cheek and it dawned on Sören again that this was either the last time they were going to see each other or not for a long time. And as self-conscious as he'd been about his feelings, not knowing if they were returned, fearing rejection, Sören felt like he had nothing left to lose, a dam inside him breaking.  
  
Sören came up to kiss him and husked, "I love you."  
  
He started to speed up inside him, letting his passion loose; Vanimórë moaned and shuddered, rolling his hips back at Sören, urging him on.  
  
Sören took his hands, squeezed them. He held nothing back now, pounding Vanimórë into the mattress, rain pelting the roof, thunder booming, his heart open, emotions bleeding out. Sören's voice shook as he called out, "I love you. I love you.  _I love you._ "  
  
  
_  
  
  
It stopped raining on the way back to the house in Akureyri. They were silent again.  
  
Vanimórë had checked out of the hotel when he and Sören were in the lobby; Vanimórë was wheeling the suitcase with him. After he dropped Sören off, he'd be returning the Bentley, then taking a walk to the Dimmuborgir, though it was a bit of a walk.  
  
In front of Sören's house, the car pulled over, and they lingered.  
  
"So this is goodbye," Sören said.  
  
Vanimórë nodded.  
  
" _Kæru elskhugi minn, vinur minn. Bless._ " Sören stroked his face.  
  
Vanimórë took his hand, and kissed it.  
  
"Thank you for everything," Sören said.  
  
"Thank  _you_  for everything."  
  
Sören gave a self-deprecating little laugh. "I didn't do much."  
  
"You did more than you know, beauty."  
  
Sören hugged him, and Vanimórë kissed his forehead. Then he patted Sören's shoulder. "Go," he said simply.  
  
Sören opened the car door, and before he could get out, Vanimórë said, "Sören."  
  
Sören paused.  
  
"May the Force be with you."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Maglor and Dooku were waiting for him in the kitchen. "I thought you guys would be in bed, fucked your brains out," Sören said, attempting levity, as he did.  
  
"Well, there was that, but awhile ago. We've had time to recover," Maglor said, as Dooku blushed.  
  
Then Dooku asked, "How did it go?"  
  
"We enjoyed ourselves." Sören nodded. "It was... a good time. Aaaaand he's gone." And Sören started to cry.  
  
He hadn't expected to cry until later, but something about Maglor and Dooku being right there, knowing how difficult this was for him, made him vulnerable. And then they were on either side of him, drawing him into their arms, dragging him off to the bedroom.  
  
When Sören was in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms, he climbed onto the bed, held between them, the two of them rocking him, petting him, letting him cry and cry. "He's gone," Sören sobbed. "I love him, and he's gone..."  
  
"I know." Dooku kissed the top of his head. "But we're here. You still have us."  
  
"I'm not going anywhere ever again," Maglor said, taking Sören's chin in his hand, looking into his eyes.  
  
Sören erupted, sobbing even harder, sobbing into Maglor's chest, tears racking him so hard it almost hurt, shivering, and he could feel Maglor heaving a little, and something about Maglor crying with him made him cry even more. Sören heard himself howling, keening, inhuman noises in his grief. "Don't leave," Sören cried. "Don't leave, don't go, don't leave me again..."  
  
"I swore to you I won't. I'm right here. I'm right here." Maglor's arms tightened around him and he rocked Sören harder.  
  
"Don't go..."  
  
Maglor picked Sören's head up and started to sing, "Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you -"  
  
"OH, GODDAMMIT," Dooku yelled, and the pained look on his face made Sören giggle through his tears, laughing harder at Maglor's innocent face, and then Sören started crying again. Laughing and crying.  
  
"I'm sorry," Sören said finally. "I feel like I cry too much. Einar used to give me shit about being so sensitive, so did Justin, and I got picked on in school about it -"  
  
"Your sensitive heart is one of the things we love about you," Maglor said, and Dooku nodded.  
  
"You've told me before not to keep my feelings inside," Dooku said, rubbing Sören's back. "You should heed your own advice."  
  
"You cry it out, as much as you need to." Maglor kissed Sören's forehead.  
  
Sören felt self-conscious about crying this much over a fuckbuddy, but...  _It wasn't just a fling. I loved him. I will_ always  _love him._  
  
Sören cried and cried for hours until at last, exhausted, he had cried himself to sleep.


	45. We Are Family

**We Are Family**

 

The day after Vanimórë left, Sören was numb. He went to the studio as usual, but couldn't even fake a smile for his students, and that evening he picked at his food, declined sex, and went to sleep early.  
  
Maglor had Fridays off from the studio, so Sören went there alone, and even though he'd barely spoken to Maglor yesterday - he'd barely spoken at all - Sören was acutely aware of the silence, the way it felt with Maglor not around as usual, across the hall, and joining him for break. Even though he knew Maglor would be there when he got home, Sören found the absence almost triggering, a sharp reminder of when "Alejandro" was gone. Sören knew he missed Vanimórë in his own right - he was fond of him, he enjoyed his company, he would have liked to spend more time with him, not just sex... though that too... but doing things with him around Iceland. _Seeing the world with him._  But Vanimórë's departure was also dredging up those old feelings of when Maglor left, and when Dooku had pushed him away, even though Sören logically understood all those situations were different, the PTSD-addled part of his brain was screaming  _Another person I loved, who left me._  
  
Sören drove home slowly, even taking a detour, trying to calm himself down. But eventually he did drive home, and when he pulled in his hands were shaking, eyes burning with unspent tears.  
  
Dooku's vehicle wasn't there, which somehow made things worse. Sören got out of the jeep and could hear Maglor's harp. After he walked in the front door, the harp stopped.  
  
"Where's Nico?" Sören called out, self-conscious at the note of terror in his voice.  
  
"He went to the store to pick up stuff for dinner," Maglor's voice called back.  
  
Which was a perfectly normal, reasonable thing for Dooku to do, and indeed, Sören should have expected that, since Dooku usually did smaller shopping trips a few times a week rather than doing one big haul per week - he was retired, it got him out of the house. Sören felt stupid for his panic about it. He felt stupid enough to get choked up, making it harder to fight the tears. He could hear Maglor's footsteps coming down the hall, and as badly as Sören had wanted to see him at the studio he couldn't be around anyone right now. Before Maglor could get to him Sören ducked into the bathroom, locked the bathroom door, and turned on the sink.  
  
Maglor started to knock on the door. Sören decided to play the I-can't-hear-you game, even though he knew perfectly damn well that wouldn't work with Maglor of all people. He turned on the shower - maybe a shower would relax him and make him feel better, anyway.  
  
He stripped down, put his clothes in the laundry hamper, climbed in the shower, and fell apart under the water, leaning against the cool tile of the shower wall, crying. Being naked just reminded him of making love with Vanimórë that last time.  
  
_I love you. I love you. I love you._  
  
He hadn't said it back, and Sören knew that he wouldn't say it back, but he still needed to say it. And  _I need to feel you_  had been something. The  _passion_  had been returned, if not the words of love. God, the passion between them... Sören shuddered, hardening a little at the memory.  
  
They had bitten and scratched each other, and as Sören lathered himself, he noticed his skin was back to its usual appearance, no evidence of bites or scratch marks. Sören had the kind of unforgivingly fair, sensitive skin where bruises would be evident for a good five days to a week, even with ice, but there had been none of that; it was less than forty-eight hours since their tryst and already it was gone. He'd been informed that there would likely be some physiological changes with immortality, and it was one thing to expect speed healing from injuries and another thing to  _see it_.  
  
_This is really happening. This is really real._  The hair on Sören's arms and the back of his neck stood on end; despite the heat of the water, his skin broke out into gooseflesh, a shiver down his spine.  
  
And that wave of sorrow.  _He's gone. He's really gone. I'm probably never going to see him again._  The bites and scratches had faded from his body too soon, and he was so upset by it that he screamed, and again, feeling stupid all over again that he was getting this upset, someone who didn't even love him back...  
  
Maglor was pounding on the door now. "Sören, I am going to break this fucking door down."  
  
The screaming had probably alarmed him. Sören used the Force to turn off the water. "I'm almost done in here," Sören yelled back, his voice shaking.  
  
" _Hells._ "  
  
Sören came out with a towel wrapped around his waist, even though he normally had no reservations about nudity around his partners. Maglor was leaning against the wall of the hallway, arms folded. "What happened?" he asked.  
  
Sören opened his mouth to speak, and couldn't, tears welling up again.  
  
Maglor's posture relaxed, and he walked over to Sören, his voice softer. "Sören..."  
  
"He's gone. We got a little rough that last time, which was fun, and the marks aren't there anymore and he's gone and I have nothing to remember him by and  _he's fucking gone_  -"  
  
Maglor's arms were around him now, dragging him to the bedroom. Then Maglor removed the towel from Sören's waist, before he started removing his own clothing. Sören watched, feeling numb, and then the numb feeling went away when Maglor pulled him close and kissed him hard. Sören responded without thinking about it, arms around him, kissing him back, and Maglor walked backwards towards the bed, pulling Sören along with him.  
  
They climbed onto the bed together, and then Maglor just held him for a moment, petting the damp curls; he pressed a soft, gentle kiss against Sören's brow.  
  
"He's gone." Sören let out a sob.  
  
Maglor's arms tightened around him; Sören wept into his chest, and Maglor rocked him, continuing to pet him, making soothing noises.  
  
Finally Maglor was kissing his tears. Sören could see the tears in his own eyes, which made him start sobbing all over again, not wanting to make Maglor sad too.  
  
"I'm sorry," Sören choked out. "I'm sorry I'm like this -"  
  
"Sören. What did we tell you the other night? It's OK that you're sensitive." Maglor's forehead pressed against his, and their noses rubbed together. "And I understand why you're upset. I know what it's like to lose the people you love, and it kills me that I did that to you, years ago." He kissed the tip of Sören's nose. "But you're stuck with me now. And I know that doesn't replace... Vanimórë. But you have me. And right now, I want to comfort you. I want to make you feel better, for a little while."  
  
Maglor kissed him, tenderly at first, then the kiss heated. Sören felt himself hardening - Maglor was already hard - and Maglor gently rolled Sören onto his back, kissing him again and again. He grabbed the lube on the bedtable, and readied Sören with slick fingers as they continued kissing, hard cocks rubbing together. When Sören's thighs were parted wide and he was arched to him, rolling his hips, fucking Maglor's fingers, Maglor knew he was ready, and kissed Sören deeply as he guided the tip of his cock to Sören's opening.  
  
They kissed passionately as Maglor slid inside, inch by inch, and when he bottomed out in Sören, buried to the hilt, they both shuddered and cried out together at the sweetness of it, the deliciousness of the way they fit together, how  _right_  it felt.  
  
Maglor took him slowly, kissing him, petting him. "I love you," Maglor whispered between kisses, the slow push and pull inside him. "I love you, Sören. I love you, Ada. And I'm right here. Will never leave you. I'm yours."  
  
Sören cried a little, touched by his words, touched by his gentleness, almost like Maglor was making love to his soul, not just his body. Maglor took his hand and kissed it, rested their joined hands between their chests, against their hearts. His free hand stroked Sören's curls, looking into his eyes before kissing him again, then kissing the tears that flowed.  
  
"I love you." Sören's voice broke. "I need you -"  
  
"It's OK to need me. I need you, too."  
  
"I'm not too needy?" Sören remembered Justin calling him that more than once.  
  
"No."  
  
"Justin told me that was the real reason why you left -"  
  
Maglor bit Sören's lower lip hard enough to draw blood, growling, and started thrusting into him harder. "I'd kill him again, just for that."  
  
Sören shivered at the fire in his eyes. He rocked his hips against Maglor's, hands sliding over his back, nails digging into him.  
  
Maglor kissed him hard. "You're not too needy at all, Sören. And I'm needy too." He nibbled Sören's neck. "I hunger for you." He kissed Sören's neck, licked it, nibbled some more. "I've been waiting for you to get home all day so I can  _fuck the shit out of you_."  
  
Sören started giggling, not expecting that turn of phrase from Maglor - between that and Maglor indulging in toking up with him, he could see his influence was rubbing off, and it amused him. His gigglefit stopped when Maglor kissed him hard, eyes wild and a little violent, reflecting his bottomless need, bottomless hunger. Sören shivered again, and urged Maglor on faster with his hips. Maglor thrust faster, harder, and Sören cried out, "Yes," matching his rhythm. The sweet, sweet rubbing on his prostate made Sören's balls tighten, feeling himself on that edge. Maglor slowly stroked Sören's cock, teasing it, the pleasure winding, building, Sören making strangled sobbing noises. Maglor kissed Sören's neck and shoulder, down to his nipples, lapping, suckling. Sören cradled his head, stroked the beautiful flood of raven hair, the sensitive tips of his pointy ears.  
  
"Ada," Maglor rasped between licks at Sören's nipple, glancing up at him with heat in his eyes, heat that made Sören's cock throb, more precum dripping down the shaft.  
  
Sören collected it with his fingers, rubbed it on the other nipple, and Maglor moved his head to work on that one. Sören found himself saying, "That's a good boy, Kanafinwë, nursing on your Ada."  
  
Maglor started pounding into him, one of Sören's legs hooked on his shoulders. Sören gave a wild cry, panted "Yesyesyesyes _yes_ ", hips bucking wildly underneath him, lost in sensation, almost ready to climax. Maglor suckled his nipple harder - Sören could feel across their bond how much those words inflamed him - and Sören was turned on too by the sheer kinkiness of it, how utterly  _debauched_  they were together.  
  
"Oh, Kano." Sören continued to stroke Maglor's hair as he lapped and suckled. "My good boy, my Kanafinwë..."  
  
"Mmmmmf." Maglor suckled again, and then Sören anointed his other nipple with precum and gasped when Maglor's lips wrapped around it, sucking hard. He cried out when Maglor tugged the nipple with his teeth, tongue lashing it before drawing it into his mouth again.  
  
Maglor's fingers rubbed the other nipple, and his free hand was playing more insistently with Sören's cock, thumb teasing the sensitive frenulum. He was still driving into Sören hard, and Sören clung to him, shaking, panting, almost there, so close, but he wanted this to last, wanted to be lost in this moment, this passion, this  _fire_  as long as possible. Nothing else existed, burned all away, only the blinding glory of their pleasure, their passion, their love.  
  
_My Song. My magnificent, beautiful Song._  
  
"Fëanor." Maglor's voice shook. "Fëanor, Sören, Ada, I can't hold back..."  
  
Sören took his hands, squeezed them. "Come with me, Kanafinwë."  
  
Maglor kissed him hard and they came together, crying out into the kiss. Maglor gasped, and breathed, " _Ada_."  
  
"Macalaurë. Kanafinwë. Oh god, Kano." The orgasm ripped through him, and Sören let out a wordless cry, shaking from head to toe, toes curling, melting with pulse after pulse. "Kano," he panted. "Kano... Kanafinwë...  _Kanye_..."  
  
  
_  
  
  
"Dinner's ready."  
  
Sören blinked his eyes open -  _I must have passed out_  - and Dooku was standing there, amusement in his eyes.  
  
Maglor rolled off Sören and sat up, also looking groggy. Sören used the Force to pull over a pair of pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, while Maglor got changed into his own pajamas, and after Dooku walked back out of the bedroom, Sören noticed Maglor giving him a look.  
  
"What?" Sören asked.  
  
"You know what." A pause, and then Maglor raised an eyebrow. " _Kanye._  Really?"  
  
"It slipped out." Sören restrained a grin, badly. It had been unintentional - he was surprised he could make words at all, at the end - but it was  _funny_ , and Maglor's horrified reaction moreso. "Oops."  
  
Maglor facepalmed, but he was shaking with silent laughter, and Sören saw him blushing. " _Hells_ , Sören."  
  
Sören got up from the bed once his night clothes were on and he walked over to Maglor, who was still shirtless, and gave him a little kiss. Then Sören's hands roamed over Maglor's bare chest and the kiss became less innocent, with Sören moaning into the kiss and Maglor growling, pushing Sören back. Sören smirked at the way Maglor's pajama bottoms were tenting.  
  
"We're never going to get out of here if you keep that up," Maglor said, "and he'll yell -"  
  
"IT'S GOING TO GET COLD," Dooku's voice boomed from the kitchen.  
  
Dooku had made grilled ham-and-cheese sandwiches, as if he'd sensed Sören was upset and wanted to make grilled cheese, his favorite. There were also roasted, herbed potatoes. Sören smiled at him as he sat down at the table.  
  
"You were out awhile," Sören said.  
  
"I probably left just before you got back, and I stopped at the park first to go for a run," Dooku said.  
  
"A run." Sören's eyebrows went up. He was used to Dooku going for long walks, but -  
  
"Yes. I seem to have a lot of energy all of a sudden." Dooku glanced at him over his water.  
  
"I... guess. Wow."  
  
Maglor had a guilty grin on his face, and then Dooku's own expression matched it, and Sören facepalmed, snorting. "Did you have fun while I was at work today?" Sören asked.  
  
"Yes," Dooku said, blushing. "You both were going at it when I got in, but I didn't attempt to join in because Macalaurë probably needed, er... a rest."  
  
"Oh, he fucked you good?" Sören leered at Maglor.  
  
His blush deepened, and then Maglor just nodded, and Sören cackled, and Maglor laughed too, still flustered. Dooku actually  _winked_  at him, and then Dooku said, rubbing Sören's knee under the table, "I can make up for the lack of participation later."  
  
"I bet you can," Sören said.  
  
"He needed some TLC," Maglor said, leaning in to kiss the top of Sören's head.  
  
"I thought as much." Dooku nodded. "I could feel it when I was out, and wanted to give you both some time."  
  
"Yeah." Sören felt that sharp ache again, thinking of Vanimórë.  
  
Snúdur rubbed against Sören's legs, meowing plaintively.  
  
"You have food in your dish," Sören told him.  
  
Snúdur meowed louder and stood up on his hind legs, paws on Sören's thigh, meowing again.  
  
"He wants cheese," Dooku said. "I guess cats really do resemble their owners."  
  
"I do love my cheese," Sören said. He patted Dooku. "It's why I'm with you."  
  
"You know..."  
  
"I know."  
  
"At least he doesn't mangle your name when he orgasms," Maglor said to Dooku.  
  
Dooku snorted.  
  
"What would I even call you?" Sören scratched his beard thoughtfully. "Oh, I know. Yolo."  
  
" _No._ " Dooku glared.  
  
Maglor put his water down, shaking with laughter.  
  
" _Could you not encourage him._ "  
  
"Does he need encouraging," Maglor said.  
  
"My Yolofinwë." Sören kissed the tip of Dooku's nose.  
  
"That's bratty even for you," Dooku said.  
  
"It is!" Sören grinned, nodding. "It's almost like we were brothers in a past life."  
  
Dooku glared over his sandwich, and kicked Sören under the table.  
  
Sören responded to that by using the Force to flick a slice of potato at him, hitting him in the nose, as he casually sipped his ginger ale with a straw, blowing bubbles into his drink to annoy Dooku further. Maglor was completely failing at keeping his expression neutral, and then suddenly a slice of potato flew at both Sören and Maglor.  
  
"OK, that's it." Sören took the straw out of his drink and put it in Dooku's ear.  
  
Dooku got up and Sören ducked away, laughing and screaming; he and Dooku chased each other around the kitchen, finally rolling around on the living room floor, tickling each other. They stopped when Snúdur climbed up on Dooku like he owned him and settled into a ball, kneading and purring, and the two collapsed, laughing, wheezing.  
  
Maglor stood over them, hands on hips. "Your food is going to get cold... children."  
  
Dooku blew a raspberry at him and Sören laughed so hard his sides hurt, tearing up.  
  
Sören got up and pulled Dooku up with him, even though Dooku didn't need his help. "Come on, Yolo," he said.  
  
Dooku glared at him again and Sören giggled on his way back to the table.  
  
  
_  
  
  
After dinner the three men sat in the living room, each with their respective laptops. Dooku was typing away at his novel in the armchair, and Sören was sitting next to Maglor on the couch, playing Stardew Valley. When Maglor noticed Sören sign in to his family's chat server, he did the same thing, since it had been a few days since either of them were there.  
  
Now that the family knew who Maglor was, he saw no reason to not go by his real name in the server, since it was unlikely any government agencies watching would think anything of it and nothing very sensitive was discussed there anyway.  
  
**[7:12 PM] Ari:**  holy shit it's both of you  
  
**[7:13 PM] Sören:**  what's up thots  
  
**[7:14 PM] Maglor:**  Hello.  
  
**[7:15 PM] Margrét:**  Oh hey there, strangers, how goes it?  
  
**[7:17 PM] Maglor:**  It goes.  
  
**[7:18 PM] Sören:**  meh  
  
**[7:19 PM] Margrét:**  Oh no, what's wrong.  
  
**[7:20 PM] Sören:**  Van's gone.  
  
**[7:22 PM] Margrét:**  Oh.  
  
**[7:22 PM] Margrét:**  Yeah, I should have realized that was it.  
  
**[7:22 PM] Margrét:**  You're not taking it well.  
  
**[7:23 PM] Sören:**  nope  
  
Maglor could feel Sören's distress again, and he rubbed Sören's hand for a moment.  
  
**[7:24 PM] Maglor:**  We're trying to cheer him up.  
  
**[7:26 PM] Ari:**  Have you broken out the bad memes yet? Those usually help.  
  
**[7:27 PM] Sören:**  I don't know if even bad memes will help  
  
**[7:28 PM] Ari:**  :/  
  
**[7:30 PM] Maglor:**  Well, something helped. ;)  
  
**[7:31 PM] Sören:**  *cough* some _thing_ , alright  
  
**[7:33 PM] Margrét:**

[Image: The "holy water eye drops" reaction pic.]

 

 **[7:34 PM] Sören:**  OK BUT  
  
**[7:34 PM] Sören:**  it was an achievement worth mentioning  
  
**[7:36 PM] Maglor:**  I, ah, made him come so hard he messed up my name.  
  
**[7:37 PM] Ari:**  oh god  
  
**[7:37 PM] Ari:**  Did he call you Maggot or something?  
  
**[7:38 PM] Maglor:**  Worse.  
  
**[7:40 PM] Maglor:**  He called me Kanye. Instead of Kanafinwë.  
  
**[7:43 PM] Ari:**  *dies*  
  
**[7:46 PM] Margrét:**  that's  
  
**[7:46 PM] Margrét:**  that's...  
  
**[7:49 PM] Margrét:**  wow  
  
**[7:51 PM] Maglor:**

****

[Image: Will Smith as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, shrugging, captioned I AIN'T EVEN MAD]

 **[7:52 PM] Maglor:**  He had a good time?

 **[7:54 PM] Sören:**  now I need to change your ringtone to Kanye

 **[7:54 PM] Sören:**  and my new pet name for you is Yeezus or Yeezy

**[7:55 PM] Maglor:**  How about no.

**[7:57 PM] Sören:**  I LOVE YOU YEEZY

**[7:57 PM] Sören:**  and I love you guys too

**[7:58 PM] Margrét:**  You know we love your dorky, goofy ass, right?

**[7:59 PM] Sören:**  just my ass, or

**[8:02 PM] Margrét:**  OK, that's a positive sign, at least. *cringe*

**[8:03 PM] Sören:**  anyway I just wanted to check in and say hi, I'm alive, etc

**[8:03 PM] Sören:**  I think I'm gonna go sit outside for a bit and get some air

Maglor watched Sören sign out, and he patted Maglor's knee as he slid off the couch; Dooku and Maglor both watched Sören make his way to the backyard. Maglor was about to put his laptop down and go after him and Dooku held up his hand. "Let him be," Dooku said. "We can go to him in a little while, but let him be for now. I don't want him to get embarrassed again from crying and feel even worse than he does."

Maglor took a deep breath and nodded, reluctantly.

Then he had a thought, remembering how the banter in the kitchen had lifted Sören's mood temporarily, and knowing the presence of Sören's family tended to encourage that. He opened a private group chat with Margrét and Ari.

**[8:09 PM] Maglor:**  Can I talk to you guys for a few minutes?

**[8:10 PM] Margrét:**  Yeah, what's going on?

**[8:11 PM] Maglor:**  Actually, let me get Nicolae in here since this involves him, too, he'll get a notification on his desktop.

**[8:13 PM] Dooku:**  Yes?

**[8:14 PM] Maglor:**  Even though you guys just saw each other at the wedding, I think with Van having left, Sören really needs his family around right now.

**[8:15 PM] Maglor:**  Nicolae, if it's OK with you...

**[8:16 PM] Maglor:**  Ari, I'd like to invite you to come up for a visit, and Margrét, also you Frankie and Kol.

**[8:17 PM] Ari:**  When?

**[8:19 PM] Maglor:**  As soon as possible, he's not in a good place right now.

**[8:22 PM] Ari:**  Hm. I could probably fly out tomorrow morning, I'll get my neighbor to watch my cat.

**[8:24 PM] Margrét:**  I can probably get one of my crew to handle the bar for me this weekend and come in on the same flight.

**[8:25 PM] Maglor:**  We have a guest room, so if you guys want to discuss who gets it... the bed is big enough for three people, it's the same as ours.

**[8:27 PM] Margrét:**  Ari, since the cabin in Svalbarðseyri technically still belongs to you, you want to stay there, and we take the guest room?

**[8:28 PM] Ari:**  OK.

**[8:30 PM] Ari:**  So we'll be arriving in the late morning or early afternoon, and go back on Sunday? Or would Monday be better? I can get away with going back on Monday.

**[8:31 PM] Margrét:**  I could too, I suppose, but it's up to you...

**[8:33 PM] Dooku:**  Monday is fine with me if it's fine with Macalaurë.

**[8:34 PM] Maglor:**  That works for me.

**[8:36 PM] Dooku:**  It won't solve everything, but it should help to get Sören's mind off things for the weekend, since he won't have classes at the studio to distract himself.

**[8:37 PM] Margrét:**  Hopefully.

**[8:39 PM] Margrét:**  And now I have to run and go to work, but I'll see you guys tomorrow!

**[8:41 PM] Maglor:**  I'll get going myself.

**[8:42 PM] Ari:**  Good night!

**[8:43 PM] Maglor:**  *waves*

"Thank you for being OK with that," Maglor said.

Dooku nodded. "I like the family I married into... and it'll give that little brat other targets for his mischief." Dooku pinched the bridge of his nose and put his laptop down. "Yolo, indeed." He sipped his tea.

Maglor couldn't help laughing. "You love him." He sighed. "We love him. Our brat."

"Yes." Dooku also sighed. "It pains me to see him so sad. His laughter is the light of my life, even when it's at my expense. Perhaps especially when. He's taught me not to take everything so damn seriously. That everything isn't hopeless bullshit."

"So when he himself is like this..."

Dooku nodded. "It feels like the sky is falling. While I was out today I thought about getting him a little gift, to try to help cheer him up. The question is what."

"Well..." Maglor thought for a moment, and remembered the last time the family had gotten together. "He likes silly hats."

"That he does." Dooku gave a small smile, mischief of his own. "The crown of Silmarils was the ultimate silly hat."

"Oh my  _gods._ " Maglor felt like he couldn't breathe, sides heaving. Anyone else who said that, he would probably stab, but Dooku could get away with it, poking gentle fun at what had been his half-brother in a past life. "That's... that's so bad..."

"You know, he is so much the gay stereotype at times and so dramatic that I wonder if I oughtn't get him a tiara." Dooku stroked his beard.

"He'd probably love that, too."

"He likely would. And he'll need a place for the Silmarils when they return."

"You sound very confident that they will." Maglor had lost hope for that, too, a long time ago.

"Well, the fate of the entire family is at stake here, and that is one of the few things Sören is deadly serious about. And as you know, when Fëanor puts his mind to something,  _it will be done._ "

"I do remember that quite clearly, yes." Maglor leaned back against the couch. "We should probably go check on him."

"We probably should." Dooku finished his tea, and got up from the armchair.

Sören was sitting outside, staring out into space, the thousand-yard stare in his eyes. Maglor's heart sank when he saw it. Sören also looked like he'd been crying again.

"Sweetheart," Dooku said, putting an arm around Sören. Sören blinked and then snuggled against Dooku's torso, making a wounded animal noise. Dooku affectionately tousled Sören's curls. "Let us make you feel better."

They pulled him out of the patio chair, and back into the house. They took turns kissing him once they were inside, and then Dooku picked up Sören and carried him to the bedroom.

Sören was open and slick from earlier, and Maglor watched, burning with lust as Sören sank down on Dooku's cock, his back against Dooku's chest, Dooku's arms around him, kissing and licking Sören's neck. When he was all the way in, he tilted Sören's face to kiss him, and Sören began the first few strokes of his slow ride, the two groaning into kiss after kiss.

Maglor joined them on the bed, and leaned in to kiss Sören, then Dooku. Sören guided the tip of Maglor's cock to his opening, and he gasped as Maglor began to push inside, Maglor also gasping at the tight heat of Sören, the feel of Dooku's cock against his.

The three joined hands, pressed their foreheads together, breathing each other's breath.

"You have us," Dooku said, stroking Sören's face. "You belong to us, and we belong to you. And nothing will ever tear us apart again."

Sören kissed him hard. "I love you."

Dooku kissed him back. "I know." His eyes met Sören's, and his fingers trailed from Sören's cheek down to his heart. "I love you too."

"And I love you." Sören turned to kiss Maglor.

Maglor pushed them both down, kissing Sören deeply, then turning his head to kiss Dooku over Sören's shoulder. The three pairs of hands clasped together again, Maglor and Dooku thrusting inside Sören slowly, and for awhile, it was all OK again.

 

_

Even though Maglor knew to expect Sören's family sometime on Saturday, he was still startled by the knock on the front door. He and Sören were still in bed, sleeping in after being up late last night, the three making love well past 2 AM. Sören made a grouchy noise. "Who the fuck..." Sören mumbled.

Dooku's voice rang out down the hall. "Ari, Margrét, Frankie, Kol, come in."

Sören's eyes flew open.

"I believe Sören and Macalaurë are still resting..."

"Is that what they're calling it now?" came Frankie's voice.

"...but I shall rouse them..."

"We're up," Maglor yelled.

And then he instantly regretted informing them of that, because Frankie barged right in, with Kol and Margrét hot on her heels, and Sören used the Force to draw the sheet over them a split second too late. Ari came just as the sheet was falling over their lower halves.

"Oh god," Margrét said, facepalming.

Kol let out a low whistle, and Frankie turned beet red, trying to look off to the side like she hadn't seen anything, but Maglor could tell she had. Sören was also red now, stammering.

"I, ah," Sören said. "Um."

"Er," Ari said.

"Uh, how's it hanging?" Sören asked.

"Pretty well," Kol said, with a naughty look, and Frankie started snorting and cackling; Margrét elbowed both of them.

"What the bloody hell are you guys doing here?" Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls, and over his face, rubbing his beard. "Did something happen?"

"Yeah, you happened," Margrét said, folding her arms. "We decided you needed us to come up here and make you stop being a sad panda."

"Are pandas hung like that?" Kol asked.

Margrét facepalmed. "Oh my fucking god, Kol."

Frankie snorted again. "All right, all right, let's give them their privacy." She wagged her finger at Sören and Maglor. "To get some clothes on, you lot, no funny business."

Once Maglor and Sören were dressed, they strolled into the living room, where everyone was waiting. Dooku asked, "Shall I make you all breakfast?"

"Maybe tomorrow morning? We were talking on the plane about taking you guys out to breakfast," Ari said, and Margrét nodded.

Margrét, Kol, Frankie and Ari had a rental, and they piled into it, with Dooku taking his jeep, Sören in the passenger seat, Maglor in the back. It was a short ride from their house to downtown, and when they pulled into parking spaces, Sören said, "After we eat we should walk around some, since Frankie hasn't seen my hometown yet."

"No?" Maglor found that strange.

"We went down to Reykjavik last Christmas to see everyone," Sören explained. "Frankie really hasn't had reason to come up here since she moved out here."

They started at a restaurant for breakfast. Then there were different shops to see, both more mainstream, corporate retailers as well as independent, niche, novelty stores. Between stores they stopped at a food cart since Sören was getting overheated and wanted water, and he and Frankie got extra bottles to carry just in case. Then Sören dragged everyone into a toy store and ended up in a water pistol fight with Frankie, using the extra bottles to fill the display pieces, which made the store owner insist they buy them. Dooku had been hovering near the entrance of the store, presumably not wanting to get embroiled in the shenanigans, but then Maglor noticed he was looking across the street at something that had caught his eye, and when Maglor approached, as Sören and Frankie were now arranging stuffed animals on child-sized picnic tables, Dooku made a subtle gesture at what he was looking at - a jeweller's.

"Take a walk with me," Dooku said.

"We'll be back in a few minutes," Maglor informed the rest of them.

They crossed the street. Dooku wandered the shop, looking at the display cases, which included a selection of name pendants, which was trendy in the United States, though he seemed uninterested. There was in fact a small display of crowns, since Akureyri had a strong folk culture compared to the rest of Iceland and bridal crowns were considered traditional, though getting formally, legally married was less and less common these days. An older, silver-haired man was watching them looking at the crowns, and finally came over and started speaking to them in Icelandic.

" _Geturðu talað við mig á ensku? Íslenskur minn er ekki góður._ " Dooku gave an apologetic frown.

The man nodded. Most Icelanders spoke English, learning it from a young age, and spoke it excellently, though the heaviness of the accent varied from person to person. "Jæja, you're looking at the crowns, já?"

"Yes." Dooku looked over at the display case with the name pendants then. "I have a question for you. Well, a few questions. Do you make everything in this shop?"

"I do, já."

"Would it be possible to combine two things together? One of the crowns, with a row of letters on top?"

"It could be done, sure. You have a name in mind?"

"A word, not a name. Brat."

The jeweller belly laughed. Dooku smiled. Then his expression was deadly serious. "How long will it take to get done?"

"A few days, probably."

"A quote?"

The jeweller quoted him, and Dooku said, "I'll pay you triple if you have it ready in 24 hours."

The jeweller's eyebrows went up. Dooku pulled out one of the credit cards that had come in an air drop bundle from a drone after he called Charlie for the first time a few days ago, and the jeweller nodded. "Jæja, you got yourself a deal."

When they left the jewelry shop, Dooku said, "I know we have a large reserve but I want to be careful with it, and spending money like it's water can call attention to ourselves. I normally wouldn't splurge like that, but."

"You want to give it to Sören while his family is around."

Dooku nodded.

Dooku and Maglor attempted to keep a poker face when they rejoined the others, who were on their way into a gallery, but Sören kept giving them suspicious looks.

"Yolo and Yeezy over here are up to something," Sören said, finally.

"Hells, Sören." Maglor facepalmed; Sören was never going to let the "Kanye" slip go.

Dooku glared at being called "Yolo" again, and Sören kissed the tip of his nose. Then Dooku artfully changed the subject. "We should take them to the Botanical Gardens and the Christmas House, yes?"

 

_

"Oh my god, it's so beautiful here," Frankie yelled as they walked into the Botanical Gardens, doing a little twirl.

"This is one of my favorite places in the world," Sören said truthfully.  _And you look like a fairy princess, right now._  As happy as he was to see his best friend right now, there was also that resurgence of conflicted feelings, not wanting to potentially strain their friendship by turning it into something more.

Kol smiled as he stopped at a flowerbed, and for a split second Sören could have sworn the flowers opened wider and tilted upward to him, sunbeams streaming. Sören blinked, and then he thought to himself,  _I'd like to paint that._

But first, he needed to finish the painting he'd started, of himself, Dooku, and Maglor lounging post-coitus in a garden with Australian flora and fauna that he hadn't realized was Australian till Maglor pointed it out, that still needed a background. Sören was reluctant to touch a happy painting when he was feeling melancholy like this, but he could feel himself itching to create again, which he supposed was a positive sign. As he'd been walking around downtown Akureyri, he'd worried that Vanimórë's departure would trigger a creative block the way Maglor's had five years ago. It wasn't  _quite_  as devastating as when Maglor left, but Sören still ached, and he knew he was going to ache for a long time, wondering about all the what-ifs, what-could-have-beens, missing him.

In these moments, though, watching Kol's simple happiness in the beauty of nature, and Frankie practically dancing around, things almost felt all right.

Maglor's hand was on his shoulder now. Sören snuggled into him for a moment. "So, what were you and Nico doing while we were in the toy store?" he asked, feeling bold.

"Stuff," Maglor said, looking at the flowers.

"Like sexy stuff, or..."

"You have a one-track mind. No, we were not doing 'sexy stuff' out in the middle of public in broad daylight, Sören."

"So what were you doing, then?"

A smirk. "You'll see."

"Oh, will I."

"Yes."

Ari chose that moment to ninja-pounce Sören, giving him a hug from behind, and Sören laughed, putting his arms over his cousin's before Ari gave him a noogie.

"I'd forgotten how much I miss this place," Ari said.

"Jæja, you mentioned at the wedding you needed a break from Reykjavik." Sören turned around to look at him. "I'd love to have family closer, and you could move into the cabin... if you're worried about what you'd do for work, maybe you could teach yoga classes at the studio..."

"I do need a break from Reykjavik," Ari said, nodding, "but I don't want to move back here. This place holds... too many memories for me, still."

"Já, I get it." Sören nodded, remembering Katrín and Einar's abuse all too well; Ari had received a lot of it himself, and he was their son, so it was likely more painful for him. "I'm surprised I came back here. But I've made some new memories here. Happy ones."

"I know, and I'm glad." Ari patted him. "But I'm thinking..." He ran a hand through his hair. Even though he'd been sporting short hair since last Christmas, Sören still wasn't used to it, though at least he hadn't shaved his beard, which he was rubbing now, continuing to think and find his words.

"If you need to talk to each other in Icelandic it's OK," Maglor cut in. "I won't think you're being rude."

"No, it's not that," Ari said. "It's not translating my thoughts to English that's the problem, it's this entire thing." He gestured to a nearby bench, and he and Sören sat together, while Maglor hung back a little, listening and watching without being intrusive. A few meters away Dooku was pointing out different varieties of plant life to Frankie, while Margrét and Kol shared a tender moment, nuzzling.

"I'm thinking about selling the cabin," Ari said, "and leaving Iceland for awhile."

"Oh." Sören nodded. Then his eyes widened. " _Oh._  Shit. Really?"

Ari nodded slowly. "I've been feeling really restless the last few months. I thought it would just go away when the summer was over, but it's gotten worse, not better."

"Well I mean, I moved to London in 2015, and that turned out to be for a reason, so maybe this is the Force telling you to go find whatever it is you need to find, right?" And even though Sören meant those words, there was an ache behind them.  _Another person I love is leaving me._  He didn't love Ari romantically, of course - the concept of incest among humans was still repellent to him, Elves were different - but there was still that feeling of abandonment. He already had to deal with his twin brother being across an ocean. And he knew he wasn't being fair, feeling like that, especially when he himself had lived in the UK for two and a half years. But...

"I guess. It just feels weird because I've been here my entire life. I've never even been abroad, except for a few weeks in California years ago on an ashram which doesn't count because I was on the ashram the entire time. My experience of the world has been here and Reykjavik. That's it. That's all. And I'm gonna be thirty-five in October. I never thought I'd leave Iceland. But the last few months it's been screaming at me, and it's a little daunting. I don't even have plans for  _where_  I'm going to go."

"You could go to London, like I did...?"

"God, I don't want to go to fucking London," Ari said, laughing. "Reykjavik is enough of a big city for me and that's just over a hundred thousand people, never mind  _millions_  in London. I really want to go someplace like this, like the size of Akureyri, less than twenty thousand people, that's a pace I'm more comfortable with, but I don't know where..." Ari looked at Maglor, then. "You've been around a lot..."

"Mostly big cities." Maglor gave him an apologetic look. "It's easier to hide in a city. This has been my first time in a small town in... Hells, some decades."

"I'm gonna think about it some more because I don't want to just close down the yoga studio and leave my flat and sell the cabin and not know where I'm going," Ari said, "but I'd like to be out of Iceland by the end of the year."

"You're... you're still gonna have Christmas with us, right?" Sören wanted to smack himself as soon as the words were out -  _I'm such a selfish asshole, my cousin is restless and uncomfortable and I'm worried about him spending Christmas with us_  - but it had been a family tradition, one that had only been disrupted when Sören was living in London and even then his last year there, the family had come out. Sören desperately clung to that, as the rest of his life was changing so much.

"Jæja, I'll still have Christmas with you lot, even if I'm living out of the country by then, I'll fly out just for that." Ari tousled Sören's curls. Then he laughed. "You're such a big kid."

"I'm sorry."

"No need to be sorry." Ari hugged him. "I'm gonna miss that about you. But wherever I go, you guys need to come and visit, and I'll make it a point to come and visit wherever you go. Even when..." He looked at Maglor. "When, you know."

Sören heard Maglor sigh, and Sören nodded, choking up. Ari was leaving Iceland by choice, and Sören was eventually going to leave by necessity, but Maglor had been his choice, and as much as leaving Iceland would break his heart, it would be broken more to not have Maglor. Sören's eyes blurred with tears.

"Hey, no crying." Ari started to gently bat Sören, like the cat did when he wanted attention. "This is supposed to be happy time. Besides, me living in a new place being clueless foreigner, you'll have something else to make fun of me about."

"Oh my god, Ari, if you move to the UK, I have an entire list of survival tips for you," Sören said. "Like, they get horribly offended if you bump into them, and they expect you to say 'please' and stuff."

"Oh, that's not just a Dooku thing?"

Maglor laughed, and Sören did too, shaking his head. "Nico is a product of his culture, Ari. Things are pretty different over there, and different still depending on where you go."

"You keep talking about the UK like I'm going there for sure," Ari said, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, I mean, it's the only other place I have experience living. Visiting parts of Europe, and Brazil, and that one layover I had in Morocco doesn't count."

"You still remember that?" Maglor's eyebrows shot up, with a little smile.

Sören nodded. Their six-hour layover in Casablanca on the trip back from Rio -  _the final trip_  - hadn't been all that fun, though Sören had originally been looking forward to it, because he'd almost drowned in the undertow at Prainha Beach in Rio and was starting to come down with what turned out to be walking pneumonia, but he remembered doing some sightseeing and enjoying the food... and annoying Maglor with  _Casablanca_  quotes.

"I may not have a memory like yours, but I remember a lot of things," Sören said.

"Well..." Maglor came over and planted a kiss on Sören's brow. "Here's looking at you, kid."

"I am not a kid."

"You  _all_  are kids to me, including Nicolae."

" _God._ " Sören laughed at that, and Dooku shot them both an annoyed look across the garden, as if he'd heard that.

They had a light lunch at the little restaurant at the garden, and then they headed out to the Christmas House, which was open year-round. Sören liked taking people here who had never been before - he had been amused by Dooku's vague annoyance at the kitschiness of the place in 2017. 

And it was nostalgic to visit here with people who had been here before. "Holy shit, this brings back memories," Ari yelled as they walked in.

"Right?" Sören looked at Dooku and Maglor. "We're gonna have Christmas at our place this year, instead of going down to Reykjavik, right?"

"I suppose we could, yes," Dooku said.

"That means we need to decorate." Sören clapped his hands together excitedly. "We need  _all the decorations._ Especially the Yule Lads stuff."

"Oh no," Maglor said.

Sören cackled - he and Maglor had spent four Christmases together in Reykjavik, and he'd gotten a crash course in Icelandic Christmas customs, including and especially the Yule Lads and the Christmas Cat. But it was one thing to live through that, and another thing to be at the Christmas House, which was like Santa's own workshop. And then Sören laughed harder, looking at Maglor in this place.

"What." Maglor raised an eyebrow.

"You..." Sören wheezed. He lowered his voice. "An actual Elf in the Christmas House..."

Maglor facepalmed.

Sören howled with laughter, and Ari laughed too.

Maglor looked around to make sure no salespeople or other customers were observing and then he smacked Sören's bottom. "You're on the fucking naughty list," he said.

Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. "Promise?"

" _Hells_ , Sören."

"Do I get a switch?" Sören waggled his eyebrows.

"HO, HO, HO," Frankie yelled.

Sören put his hands on his hips, and Frankie gave him a teasing grin. "Did you...  _did you just call me a ho?_ "

"You're not deaf, right?"

Sören started chasing Frankie around the Christmas House, though they took care not to crash into displays or people. Finally Sören grabbed her in an aisle of decorations, and tickled her mercilessly, as she squeaked, a reaction that made Sören unexpectedly horny, briefly indulging in fantasies of making her whimper and squeal as he teased her to climax.

It got worse when he stopped tickling, the two of them flushed and breathing hard from the exertion, and then Frankie looked up.

"What?" Sören asked.

"We're standing under the mistletoe."

Sören looked up. They were indeed.

Frankie put her hands on his hips and took a step towards him. "Well?" She cocked her head to one side.

Sören leaned in - and leaned down a little, since he had a foot on her - and his lips brushed hers in a chaste, gentle kiss that still sent fire coursing through his veins. When he pulled back, Frankie teased, "What, no tongue?"

Sören grabbed her and their mouths met, tongues swirling together. Frankie's hands slid up from his hips over his chest, and the kiss deepened, Frankie giving a little moan into the kiss, shivering, Sören's hands wandering up her back, stroking her hair, her face. Sören was hard, and he knew she could feel it, pressing against her. Her pupils were blown wide as they let go, though not before Sören's fingers teasingly strayed to a breast, thumb "accidentally" rubbing a nipple through her shirt. Before he could pull his hand away, Frankie took that thumb and sucked on it, heat in her eyes.

He wanted her. If he was honest with himself he probably wanted her while they were still living in London, but as had been the case with Claire, he'd worried about rejection, and his own identity, not to mention that Frankie wasn't identifying as bisexual back then, either. His nerves were screaming to take her right then and there on a shelf in the aisle, and he could feel across their bond she wanted it too. But it was a public place, and "Akureyri Man Arrested at Christmas House For Public Sex" was not the kind of thing he wanted to be known for. Even when they got back to the house, somewhere more private, he couldn't go there just yet; it would be a gamechanger for their friendship, not to mention he didn't know if it would make things awkward with his sister - even though Margrét had said sharing Kol would be fine, not that Sören had acted on that desire yet, either - and enough was changing in Sören's life that he had to rein himself in... for now.

He went to the restroom and splashed cold water on his face, trying to calm down, though his hard-on was still throbbing. He was about to let himself into a stall and take care of it himself, and then Maglor walked in. They looked at each other for a moment, and then Maglor was pushing him into a stall, and Sören let out a moan as Maglor unbuttoned and unzipped Sören's jeans and got on his knees.

"I'll take care of you," Maglor whispered, before taking Sören in his mouth.

He was undone quickly, spending himself with a little cry, and the way Maglor shook and moaned with his mouth full when Sören came in his mouth let Sören know he came too, untouched. Sören just held him for a moment, feeling Maglor wobble, and then helped him up. They kissed - Sören was pleased to taste himself on the kiss - and then Maglor marched him out of the bathroom.

"That was fucking hot," Sören whispered. "And so fucking wrong."

"Now you can say you had sex with an Elf at the Christmas House," Maglor whispered back, giving him a naughty look.

Sören doubled over, tearing up as his sides split. "Wow, Maglor. Just... wow." He realized he'd called Maglor by his name in public, and felt that stab of worry, but the nearest stranger was some meters away and talking to someone else.

Back at the house, the consensus was to order pizza delivery for dinner, and as they waited, Sören put away the bags of items he'd bought at the Christmas House in the hall closet, which he'd unpack and sort later. Before he closed the hall closet he made a mental note that it was one of the things that would need to go on the fix-it list, as the rack was hanging crookedly and the paint was peeling from the walls inside; there was also a hole in one of the walls, small, but enough to cause concern for whatever could be in there.  _Glad the rest of the house isn't like that._  Sören then seemed to recall that same hole being there when he was a small child.

"This place brings back memories," Margrét said. "I know you were only four when we moved out - it was right after aunt Gitta left for Scotland, like a week or two - but I was seven, so I remember a bit more."

"Like Pabbi."

"Like Pabbi." Margrét nodded, with a frown and a little sigh. "I wish you could have known him a little more. He died when you were not yet two, and I had just turned five. He was a lovely man."

"I remember Mamma," Sören said, tearing up. "I still miss her."

Margrét hugged him tight. Then Ari cleared his throat. "Now would be a good time to give you guys a housewarming present."

"Oh my fucking god, Ari, you didn't need to get us anything," Sören said.

"Yes, I did." He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a long box, gift-wrapped.

It was a gaming console. Sören threw his head back and laughed, hugging Ari. "Oh god."

"And we brought you some games." Margrét went out to the rental and came back with a couple bags.

After the pizza came and they ate it, it was decided to set up the console, and play Rock Band. Maglor won, which surprised no one, though a valiant effort was made anyway, especially by Margrét, who demanded a rematch.

The rematch ended up being several rounds, with Margrét insisting on playing another even though she'd lost. Finally, Sören gave Maglor a "good luck" kiss that was heated enough that he got distracted, moreso when Sören said, "Wow, it's hot in here" - it was, actually, Sören was surprised by how warm the room was, even factoring in his arousal and the end of August - and took his shirt off. Maglor blundered enough that Margrét won, doing a victory dance around the living room.

"I owned your  _ass_ ," Margrét yelled.

"Clearly, we're going to have to have another rematch." Maglor looked at the time. "Tomorrow."

"God, is it that late already?"

Sören made an exaggerated yawn. "Yeah, we should go to bed."

Ari took a taxi back to the cabin, saying he'd be back in the morning.

Sören, Maglor and Dooku tried to keep it down for the sake of the guests across the hall, though Sören could hear a wet suctioning sound and what sounded like the occasional moan from Frankie - the guests were not completely succeeding at keeping it down, either. The sound of Frankie's wetness and her moaning intensified Sören's arousal, and by the end of it Sören was making noise himself. So was Maglor.

Sören and Maglor gave guilty looks as they shuffled into the kitchen the next morning, where Dooku was making everyone pancakes. Margrét glared daggers at them, confirming she'd heard them last night, while Kol looked at them with interest.

Sören was still figuring out what to do about Kol. The interest was mutual, or at least it was with him - Maglor seemed wary for some reason - but it always seemed to be brought up at the wrong time. First, it was when he was raw off the breakup with Dooku, and now, right after Vanimórë had left.  _We'll have to talk about stuff sometime when things aren't crazy._

Sören wondered if things would ever be anything other than crazy.

After breakfast the group opted to go to the Goðafoss and the Dimmuborgir. Sören knew that seeing the Dimmuborgir was going to set him off, thinking of Vanimórë, but Frankie had never seen it before, and he tried to fake good cheer, but was getting choked up. He ended up in a group hug with everyone, which turned into a group selfie, and Frankie genuinely making him feel a little better by making funny faces into the camera, which got him doing it as well.

As they left the Dimmuborgir, Dooku said, "Sören, can you ride back with the others? Macalaurë and I need to take a detour."

Sören folded his arms. "Roadside shag?"

Dooku facepalmed. "Sören, not everything involves sex."

"It doesn't?"

Dooku glared. "Sören."

Sören stuck out his tongue at him.

"We're picking up some groceries and... having a talk," Dooku said, and Maglor nodded, deadpan. Sören wondered if it had to do with their little disappearance yesterday, and wagged his finger suspiciously as Frankie pulled him towards the rental.

Being in the backseat between Frankie and Kol didn't help Sören's mind in the gutter, as he thought about what a threesome with the two of them would be like. But he was distracted by Margrét singing along with the radio, realizing that he was used to Margrét  _screaming_  with her band and had forgotten Margrét had a lovely singing voice.

"You sound really good," Sören told her. "You should do that more often."

"I have been, actually. Maglor told me I should sing more, and I take that as a compliment from him."

"Oh yeah, he's not sparing in his... opinions... if he doesn't like something." Sören cackled. "All those years watching Eurovision with him. One of the few times I'd see him get drunk."

Ari laughed. "I can't blame him. This year's was bloody awful."

"Well, I didn't get to see him react to this year's." Sören gave a wistful sigh. He'd missed Maglor so much. Even knowing they'd see each other soon, back at the house, he was feeling on edge...

Frankie rubbed his knee. Her touch would normally be comforting, but it got Sören's thoughts going again, thinking about her hands on his naked body, his hands on hers, the wet suctioning sound and the moaning he'd heard last night...

It was too hot again. "God, are we having a heat wave?" Sören looked at Kol, who shrugged.

"Well I mean, who you were in a past life... Spirit of Fire? You've always been like a living furnace," Ari pointed out.

"Jæja, there's that, and then there's this. It's like I'm having a sodding hot flash," Sören said. His eyes met Kol's again.

"It is a bit warm, I think I'm going to go for a walk before dinner," Kol said. "Enjoy the breeze."

"You want some company?" Ari looked over his shoulder.

"Not this time. Sometimes I just need a little peace and quiet, too."

Margrét snorted. "Especially with all of us all at once."

"It's not that, not really," Kol said.

"It's fine even if it is," Sören said. "I get it, I need to unplug sometimes."

 

_

 

Sören had his shirt off by the time Maglor and Dooku got back to the house, carrying in groceries; Dooku had discretely tucked in the bag from the jeweller's.

Maglor kept trying not to look at Sören lounging around with his shirt off, and failing.

Kol had gone for a walk, and when he arrived, Dooku said, "Time to start the grill."

Dooku and Kol worked the grill - ground lamb burgers and Icelandic hot dogs, which were made with a combination of pork, beef, and lamb. Maglor made a garden vegetable salad in the kitchen; they'd brought back a ready-made potato salad from the supermarket, though Maglor didn't know how good it would be. Maglor kept looking out through the sliding glass doors at the backyard, where Sören, Ari, Frankie and Margrét were playing beer pong, though Ari wasn't much of a drinker usually. They had a "no Force use" rule, and Sören's aim was very, very bad.

When the salad was ready, Maglor brought it outside, and Sören threw a ping-pong ball at him.

"What was that for?"

"Because." Sören gave him an impish grin.

He'd missed this, Sören's playfulness, his mischief. Though he'd almost dropped the salad because of it, and he gave Sören a look as he set the bowl down. Maglor's eyes met Dooku's, then, and Dooku nodded. "Yes, I think it's time we give Sören our present," Dooku said.

"You got me something?" Sören's voice was almost a squeak. "Was that why you guys were -"

Dooku gave him a cryptic little smile as he ducked into the house. He came back with the bag from the jeweller's.

Sören's eyes widened as he opened the box inside and pulled out a silver tiara - which had the word "Brat" in silver on top of it. In addition to the normal points around the tiara, there were three larger, more ornate spikes, the center on top of the word "Brat" and two sides, that could potentially hold the Silmarils later on.

Margrét and Frankie howled and clapped with laughter; Ari and Kol laughed too.

Dooku lifted it from the box and set it on top of Sören's head.

"Oh my god, we need to get some pictures," Frankie said.

Pictures were taken of Sören with the Brat tiara on his head, and Sören was  _strutting_  as he assembled the burgers and  _pylsur_ , the Brat tiara on his head, his shirt off, looking ridiculous and oddly sexy at the same time. Maglor nursed one of the cold beers that were left in the cooler from the beer pong; it was strangely warm, and the grill didn't explain it.

Just before everyone could start eating, a woman's voice came from the front of the house. "Hello? Is anyone home?" She had a British accent.

"We're out back," Dooku said. "I'll... be right there."

Sören was closest to the door and walked inside - still shirtless, still wearing the Brat tiara - and Dooku followed. Maglor decided to follow, a mixture of curiosity and concern. He couldn't believe Sören was opening the front door with that thing on his head, but he was.

There was a woman of average height and average build, short sandy blonde hair and blue eyes, who bore a vague resemblance to Lady Diana, but her face was more severe. She was dressed in a navy blue pantsuit with white blouse, very business-looking. Her eyes widened when she saw Sören, but she attempted to keep her expression neutral, giving a cough.

"How do you do," she said. "I'm Charlie."

"Come in," Dooku said, and Sören stepped back. "We were just about to start eating, we have enough if you'd like to join us -"

"I didn't mean to disturb your dinner," she said. "I can come back -"

"We could... sit in the living room, if you're here to talk to us," Dooku said. "I know that Van had said you'd be out to see us in-person eventually, but I didn't expect it to be this soon..." He gently closed the door behind Charlie as she came in.

"Well, I noticed you used one of the credit cards yesterday."

"Yes." Dooku looked a little sheepish.

Maglor went out to the patio and brought back the food, and sat on the couch next to Sören, while Dooku squeezed on the other side of them, and Charlie took the armchair.

"Are you quite sure you don't want anything?" Dooku asked. "Coffee, tea, water, juice, ginger ale..." He looked at the beer Maglor was drinking. "Beer..."

"Actually, I'll have a beer if that's fine," Charlie said, nodding.

Dooku got up to get it this time. Maglor didn't know what to make of her, though she seemed a bit more business-like than the handlers he'd been used to dealing with... a bit more official... and that was setting off little alarm bells in his head.

"Brilliant, thank you," Charlie said. "IcelandAir is a lovely company but I still find flying on short notice to be exhausting."

"I apologize for the expenditure," Dooku said, "if that's what got your attention and made -"

Charlie waved her hand. "Van left you enough of a reserve that you can afford occasional indulgences, you can be comfortable, but yes, I did want to touch base with you and make sure you understand that burning large sums of money on a regular basis is not a good idea. You have enough money, but it's a question of calling attention to yourself when you need to be keeping a fairly low profile."

"We know. I wanted to get something to cheer my husband up," Dooku said. "It won't be a regular habit."

Charlie looked at the Brat tiara on Sören's head, putting two and two together. "Mhm. I see." She took a long nip of her beer, as if to say  _thanks Van, for saddling me with these weirdos._  Maglor almost choked on his beer, trying not to laugh; he could only imagine what Vanimórë had told her.

Then he wondered what in fact she'd been told.  _I suppose we're going to find out._

"I'll cut right to the chase," Charlie said. "Before Van left -"

"Did he tell you where he was going?" Sören asked.

"'Away on business', which could mean anything with him," Charlie said, muttering " _bloody arsehole_ " under her breath. "Before Van left," she started again, "he told me about you, and your situation."

"He..." Dooku raised an eyebrow. "What situation is that, exactly."

Maglor also raised an eyebrow. His handlers over the decades had known that he needed fake identities and their paperwork. They hadn't known why. That hadn't been their business - the less they knew about who and what he was, the better off he was. He'd learned that the hard way in 1972.

"You're immortal," Charlie said.

Maglor almost spat his beer. "Fuck."

"It's all right, Alejandro. Or should I say, Mark Lowry? Marcus Lauer? Marco LaRaia?" Charlie gave him a pointed look.

"How do you -"

"All right." Charlie nodded. She pulled out her wallet, and there was an identification card for Lady Clarissa Catherine Talbot Audley. Charlie had been scowling into the camera. "I work for MI6."

"You." Maglor rose from the couch. "You.  _What._ " He could feel the fury rising in him. " _He sold us out_ -"

As calm as could please, Charlie pulled out a Glock service pistol and pointed it at him. "Calm down, Mr... Magalhães. Lowry. Whatever. Have a seat."

Maglor sat, cursing under his breath. Charlie put the pistol back where it came from, concealed. "I apologize for pulling the weapon on you, but it's force of habit since you got up suddenly -"

Maglor felt a little self-conscious, not wanting to frighten the woman but at the same time, distrustful of government agents. "I apologize myself, I -"

"Yes. I know." She met his eyes. "Allow me to explain myself and try to put your mind at ease, yes? As I said, I work for MI6. No, you were not sold out. This is the fact of the matter: I work for a department of MI6 that technically, on-record, doesn't exist, and officially I work within another department of MI6. But in my actual, real off-record department, we specialize in dealing with situations like yours, to protect the common citizens from finding out people like you exist, because that has the potential to disrupt societal fabric on a large scale. And part of how we protect common citizens from finding out people like you exist... is to protect you, as well. I know about what happened in 1972, Mr. Lowry, I'm using Lowry because you were known to them as Mark Lowry at that time. We are not the Americans."

Maglor took a few deep breaths, the memories flooding back of being held in the cell, experimented on...

Sören put an arm around him and kissed his cheek. "It's OK," he husked, picking up on the distress. "You're here now."

"Indeed, you are," Charlie said, nodding. "Whether you feel it to be so or not, it is in your best interests for me and my department to know about you, to prevent something like what happened to you in the 1970s from happening again, or worse, being picked up by rogue agents from God-knows-where who have even fewer scruples than the Americans, aren't playing by official laws of any kind, who will do God-knows-what to discover 'the secret of immortality', or the abilities we know some of this family possesses. So, even though your experience has taught you to distrust the government, and I can't blame you, I'd like you to keep an open mind at least where I am concerned and come to an understanding that Van didn't 'sell you out'. The kinds of people you've been dealing with for the last four decades, who operate completely overtly, illegally, with black market paperwork and guns and the like...  _those_  kinds of people would 'sell you out', given a matter of time. You came close to it with the people in South America."

"Yeah." Maglor ran a hand through his hair; it was why he had to keep up an illusion of not being involved with Sören when they visited Rio in 2014.

"Now then. If we have an understanding that I'm on your side..."

Dooku nodded. Maglor knew from conversations they'd had that this news would be hard for Dooku, too, since he'd had a falling out with his former best friend Sayyid-Diya about the idea of Force sensitives coming out and registering with the government, years ago, something that Sayyid-Diya thought would have stopped terrorism, if there had been Force sensitive operatives; Sayyid-Diya's son had been killed in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Sören patted Dooku as well.

"You have, as Van mentioned, a reserve of cash, which should help you for the next few decades of moving around, changing locations and identities when you are at the point where your lack of aging will cause suspicion. This cash will stretch farther if invested correctly... I know you have investments with Tesla and Microsoft, and I'd encourage you to sink some more cash into them, though not everything, Mr. Lowry," Charlie said.

"How much do we have?" Sören asked.

Charlie gave him the figure.

Sören dropped his plate; Dooku used the Force to pick it back up before it could fall on the floor, not bothering to conceal the Force use since Charlie already knew. But it was one thing for Charlie to have been informed and another thing to see it, and her eyes widened with shock as she saw the display.

"That's... a lot of fucking money," Sören said. "We're multi-millionaires now?"

"That's just the money you know about. There's an additional reserve that I've been advised to not disclose to you just yet. Which, after yesterday's expenditure, I think is wise..."

"Right, I said we wouldn't be in the habit of spending like that regularly," Dooku said, annoyed.

"It is something that newly rich people do -"

"I come from a line of counts who owned land in Romania," Dooku said. "You don't need to explain the habits of newly rich versus old money."

"I know about your family, Ion Nicolae Dooku - Nazi collaborator uncle, yes? - and I know you most likely don't need that explained to you, but your husband probably does."

Sören huffed a little. "I think I have enough common sense to make us not stick out even more than we already do."

"Let's hope so. Trips, the occasional indulgence, all of that is fine. I don't want to find out you're driving a neon green Citroen."

Maglor couldn't help laughing. Sören's voice was a hush as he said, "You knew it would be a Citroen, too...?"

"We have a little psychological profile on you," Charlie said.

"Jesus  _Christ_."

"Now then. Now that I've had that talk with you about managing money... even though I know it is your intent to stay in Akureyri for awhile, I would still like you to start thinking about your next move, even if it won't be for some time. If you can't decide on a where right now, it's OK - and that where may be subject to change, as political climates and cultures change around the world. But as Mr. Lowry can tell you, crafting a new identity is a non-trivial procedure, you're not just changing a name, but there's a story behind that name, the mask you are slipping into. For someone like Dooku, it might be easier to continue with a British persona, since the United Kingdom is a large country, but for you, Sören, it's going to be harder to keep up appearances as an Icelander since Iceland is so small and so wired and it's  _much_  more difficult to fake database information here, plus if you encounter Icelandic nationals abroad they may become keenly interested in folks from back home, who you might know in common, and the like. So your task, right now, is to start thinking of a persona that is neither too close to who you are now, but is still something you could pull off convincingly. Sören, you will likely need to learn a third language, and when you've selected one, I can get you whatever materials you need."

"Never mind a third language," Maglor said. "Sören, you're going to need to learn to speak six or seven languages by the time you're Nicolae's age."

"I speak Danish, too," Sören said. "Had to learn that at gymnasium."

"It's easier when they're languages that are closely related. Like other Scandinavian languages," Charlie said. "If you can speak Danish, too - that would be in the records we have, my apologies, there was a lot there and I'm running on fumes... that's a start... will be easier to learn Swedish and Norwegian as well."

"I also, speaking from direct experience, don't recommend the same country twice in a row, so I don't think Nicolae should try to be British when we move," Maglor said, giving Dooku an apologetic look.

Dooku frowned into his beer.

"You also need to start preparing in other ways," Charlie said. "If you have social media profiles under your wallet names, delete them if possible. If not possible, remove any pictures of yourself that are on Facebook, Twitter, the like, as soon as possible. Let me know where those images are posted, so my team can do a wipe and make sure they can't be accessed by an Internet archive. Otherwise you're looking at potentially needing plastic surgery -"

" _What._ " Sören's eyes widened.

Charlie nodded solemnly. "Hopefully that won't be necessary - it should be a crime for any of the three of you to have to alter your looks - but to make sure it absolutely is not necessary to go to that extreme to protect yourselves, no more pictures of you on the Internet. It's fine to take pictures and keep them private on your laptop or a hard drive, but don't post them anywhere, not even in something like e-mail. If a stranger takes a photo of you, whether intentionally or by accident, call me immediately no matter time of day or night and give me all the information you can. Also, don't do video chat. That leads me to the next points of business - Dooku, that novel you're working on, when you finish, I hope you intend to publish under an assumed name, whether you self-publish or go to a publishing house. You may want to have a third party handle everything altogether so there can be no connection to you, since finding out who the real person is behind a pseudonym is the custom these days. And from what I understand also, Sören, you have a gallery on deviantART. You have a very idiosyncratic painting style, one that is easily recognizable. You are going to have to start thinking about how public you want to be as an artist, and the trade-off for recognition now is not being able to produce the same kind of material later, unless you want to risk exposure... not until some decades have passed, enough for public memory to lapse."

Sören made a wounded animal noise. "Fuck. Me." 

Frankie tiptoed in. "Oh, sorry," she said. "I have to use the loo, didn't mean to interrupt -"

Charlie answered her. "It's all right. You're... Mary Frances O'Riordan, right? I'm Charlie Audley. MI6."

" _What._ " Frankie looked like she was about to bolt.

"No, we're good," Sören said.

"You'll most likely be needing my help as well," Charlie said, "and your partners."

"Jesus." Frankie facepalmed.

"Go to the bathroom, Frankie," Sören said.

"Am I gonna get flashy thinged when I come back?"

"...What." Charlie looked like Frankie had just grown another head.

Sören started laughing. "No, Frankie, that's MIB, not MI6. I'm pretty sure Charlie doesn't have that kind of equipment, or that anyone has that kind of technology..."

"Oh, do you mean the  _Men In Black_  movie," Charlie said.

Sören nodded.

"I've never seen it."

"You should," Sören said. "I love Will Smith."

"Right. Perhaps someday." The look on her face said  _perhaps never_.

"We've got it on DVD if you want to stay awhile -"

"No, really, that's... quite all right."

Dooku looked at Charlie. "I haven't seen it either."

"Yeah, you probably thought when I said 'flashy thinged' and Sören said 'equipment' I meant what happened the other morning, accidentally seeing their, ah," Frankie said, looking at Sören and Maglor. Maglor's face burned, and he watched Sören blush and do that thing with crinkling his nose and biting his lower lip, which made him want to carry Sören off to the bedroom and ravish him.

"Oh dear god," Charlie muttered into her beer.

Frankie ran off to the bathroom, giggling. Margrét, Kol, and Ari chose that moment to walk in. "All right," Margrét said, "who's ready for a rematch at Rock Band?" She looked at Charlie. "Oh, hello." She looked at Sören, Dooku, and Maglor. "Friend of yours?"

"I'll set up the game," Ari said, dipping in front of the television and console.

"Is your friend joining us for Rock Band?" Margrét put a hand on her hip.

"Er," Charlie said.

"Come on, show us what you've got." Margrét looked at Maglor. "Watch me kick his ass again."

Charlie made a pained noise.

"Didn't Van warn you about us?" Sören smirked.

"Not nearly enough." Charlie rolled her eyes.  _The immortality and psychic abilities are clearly the most normal thing about you lot_ , Maglor heard her broadcasting, and he couldn't help a grin.


	46. The Ties That Bind

**The Ties That Bind**

 

August became September. Though the visit from Sören's family and the gift of the Brat tiara had lifted his spirits slightly, it was only slightly, and a cloud of melancholy hung over Sören's spirits as the days began to grow shorter and cooler. The end of summer, and the promise of short, dark, cold days in the near future felt almost  _personal_  this time, instead of just the Earth turning on its axis. Sören still missed Vanimórë. Brief affair or not, he loved him.  
  
_Is this what I can look forward to with eternity? Getting attached to people and losing them?_  
  
Maglor and Dooku both knew Sören was depressed, and did their best to nurture and coddle and soothe him through it. Sören and Maglor decided to continue the summer schedule with Logifugl Listaskóli year-round, so instead of working six days a week as Sören had been doing before the summer, he'd be working five days with every weekend off, and Maglor would only work four days, Monday through Thursday. Sören working on Fridays while Maglor had Friday off gave him a chance to spend the day with Dooku, though as Sören discovered when he got home on the thirteenth, they were at least for now using that time to work on household projects together rather than spending the day in bed. He walked in to find Dooku and Maglor replacing the cabinets in the kitchen, which had needed it, and they'd also added additional shelving around the kitchen, which boasted a new set of professional-grade cookware.  
  
The surreality of Maglor doing fix-it work on the house made Sören giggle. "On today's episode of  _Elf Improvement_..."  
  
Maglor put his hands on his hips. "Hells, Sören, do you think I spent the First Age just poncing around and letting servants do everything?"  
  
"Well, no..." Sören rubbed his head. "I seem to recall that I made all my kids do chores and learn useful skills."  
  
"Yeah, you did." Maglor nodded. "Granted, I've had to learn new things as time has worn on, but you'd be surprised what I know how to do, and what I'm willing to do." At the look on Sören's face, Maglor chucked a towel at him. "I can see your mind floating down that gutter, Sören." Maglor raised an eyebrow.  
  
Sören waggled his eyebrows at him.  
  
Dooku rolled his eyes, but he had a small smile, and Sören could sense a sort of palpable relief with him,  _it's a good sign if he's like this._  Sören looked down at his Doc Martens, self-conscious at the way he'd been moping around lately, worrying both of them, and still feeling mopey, feeling that sharp ache of missing Vanimórë again.  
  
"All right," Dooku said, cutting into Sören's thoughts. "Let's get out of here for awhile and go to dinner." He looked at the dust on his hands, and the mess on his clothing; he was actually wearing jeans to work, which amused and surprised Sören. "Well... we'll wash up and change first."  
  
Dooku changed into an all-black outfit, as did Maglor, that was neither overdressed nor too dressed down. Sören matched, but most of his clothing was black anyway. Sören rode in the back of the jeep. He was a little sad when he saw the choice of restaurant was the seafood place down by the bay where he'd gone with Vanimórë, but he wasn't going to object. And he knew Dooku knew this was their "usual", and he could sense across their bond that Dooku was trying to give him some other associations with it; he couldn't fault him for that.  
  
The three decided on a large sampler of different kinds of fish and shellfish to split between them, as well as a few appetizers; Sören and Dooku were both partial to the stuffed mushrooms, and Sören smiled a little when Dooku put one in his mouth, before skritching his beard like a cat, giving him a treat. Sören returned the favor, putting a mushroom in Dooku's mouth, petting his whiskers, kissing the tip of his nose.  
  
Maglor grinned at them. "You guys are so cute."  
  
"I am not cute," Dooku said.  
  
Sören started poking him. "No! Stop touching me! I AM THE NIGHT!" he squeaked.  
  
Dooku glared, and Sören stuck his tongue out at him before reaching for the fresh vegetables, dipping a cherry tomato in dressing and licking the creamy dressing off. Dooku blushed, and Maglor's amusement grew at his fluster.  
  
Sören did it again with a baby carrot, before wrapping his lips and sucking on it suggestively for a moment, then taking a bite. "What's up, Doc?" he asked, grinning at Dooku, who was very flushed.  
  
Before Dooku could answer that, Sören's cell phone went off.  
  
He had specific ringtones for people who called at least somewhat regularly, and a generic ringtone for everyone else. This was the generic ringtone, and Sören would have ignored it being at dinner, but it was also set to vibrate, and that was annoying him too much to let it go for the six rings before his voice mail. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and then his eyes widened when he saw it was Gitta's number.  
  
"Gitta!  _Hvað segirðu?_ "  
  
Gitta replied in English. "Sören, hi. Is this a bad time?"  
  
"I'm at dinner, but I can take it." Something told Sören this was important, and not just a social call. "What's going on? How's Jane?"  
  
"That's... actually what I'm calling you about."  
  
"Oh no." Sören's heart sank. "Oh no. She's not -"  
  
"No. Or, not yet." Gitta let out a sharp exhale. "Sören, let me not beat around the bush here. You know that Jane's cancer is pretty advanced. This past week, it was officially declared terminal. There's nothing more they can do for her, no more chemo, no more radiation. It's palliative care from this point onward."  
  
"Jesus." Sören took a drink. "How much time does she have left?"  
  
"We don't exactly know. Could be months, could be weeks. What we do know is this - Jane would like to see everyone again, one last time, before the end, and she'd like to do it as soon as possible before she deteriorates, so your last memory of her isn't of her frail and dying." Gitta's voice broke at that.  
  
"Oh god. Gitta. I'm so sorry." Sören blinked back tears of his own - even though he didn't know them well yet, he still cared. He wished he'd gotten more time to know Jane better, to make up for lost time with the aunts who had been kept away from him growing up. With a pang, Sören wondered if it had been the same with his mother's younger brother, what had happened to him, if he was still alive or not.  
  
Gitta cried, and Sören's tears flowed; Maglor passed him a napkin. Before Sören could break and cause a scene at the restaurant, he switched to business-manager-crisis mode, something he'd learned in his med school days.  _Handle it now, react later._  "Gitta, when you say as soon as possible, how soon do you mean?"  
  
"Well, I understand that flying overseas on short notice is probably easier said than done, but I talked to Dag earlier and he and Matt are flying into Edinburgh on Monday, he called family emergency to get time off from the university -"  
  
"All right then. That's..." Sören took a deep breath. The family visit might as well be synchronized. "Let me talk to my guys here and then make some arrangements, but tentatively that's when we'll be there, and I'll call you back when I have everything squared away."  
  
"OK.  _Takk_ , Sören. I hate to spring this on you. If you need help with travel expenses, we have some money -"  
  
"Oh no. No... I can handle everything. It's fine. I'll talk to you in a couple hours? Will you still be up?"  
  
"I will. I'm a bit of a night owl."  
  
"Like me. OK. Talk to you soon."  
  
Sören hit End, and looked at Dooku and Maglor. "How much of that did you hear?"  
  
"Enough. We're going to Scotland very soon, I take it," Dooku said.  
  
"Jæja, I... gotta make some phone calls."  
  
The first was on the way back from the restaurant, riding in the back of the jeep, to María, his student who had watched Snúdur while he was at his sister's wedding.  
  
The second was to Margrét, to touch base with her about coming to Scotland at the same time. Margrét said she'd call Ari and "drag him along", even though Ari wasn't Gitta and Jane's nephew, he was still family.  
  
The third was on the prepaid burner flip phone in the emergency drawer of the kitchen.  
  
"Bollocks," Charlie greeted him.  
  
"Charlie, hi, this is Sören Sigurdsson." Sören felt amused and apologetic all at once. "Can you arrange three tickets for myself, Nicolae, and, ah... Alejandro... from Reykjavik to Edinburgh on Monday the sixteenth? Round-trip, coming back on Friday the twenty-seventh?"  
  
"Fucking bloody hell, you're flying out in less than three days?"  
  
"It's a family emergency. I assume you have my relatives on file and know about my aunt Jane -"  
  
"Yeah. Sodding -" And some mumbled words Sören couldn't understand. Sören had seen her identification, knew she was some kind of British nobility, and her language and brusque demeanor which he knew was  _not_ usual for upper-class Brits - Justin's parents had been rather posh, though not nobles, and Justin had to put on an act around them; Sören wondered if her manners might be a reaction to her upbringing  _or Vanimórë had driven her crazy_.   
  
There were a few moments of near-silence, where Sören heard tapping, presumably at a computer screen, and then Sören heard Charlie's voice again. "Right, so, expect a drop within the next ninety minutes with an envelope. Your tickets will be inside. I have you going IcelandAir first class."  
  
"Brilliant. Can you do me another favor, and get the same tickets for my sister and her partners, and my cousin Ari?"  
  
"Fuck -"  
  
"Thank you, Charlie. You're the best -"  
  
She hung up.  
  
"Now I gotta cancel classes for the next two weeks." Sören frowned. Maglor patted him.  
  
"They should understand," Maglor said.  
  
  
_  
  
A rental car had already been reserved for them - Sören noted with amusement and sadness that it was a Bentley. Dooku took the wheel on the drive from the airport up to St. Andrews, which Google Maps had said was an hour and twenty-seven minutes, but was realistically closer to two and a half hours with the traffic in Edinburgh.  
  
"Fuck  _me_ ," Sören said at the traffic congestion in Edinburgh.  
  
"We should have taken a train," Maglor said.  
  
"Or flown into Glasgow." Dooku sighed. "We'll have to make a note of this and leave early on the day we fly back."  
  
"Well, let's listen to music," Sören said. "That'll make the waiting more bearable."  
  
_When I wake up, well, I know I'm gonna be  
I'm gonna be the man who wakes up next to you  
When I go out, yeah, I know I'm gonna be  
I'm gonna be the man who goes along with you  
If I get drunk, well, I know I'm gonna be  
I'm gonna be the man who gets drunk next to you  
And if I haver, hey, I know I'm gonna be  
I'm gonna be the man who's havering to you  
  
But I would walk five hundred miles  
And I would walk five hundred more_  
  
"Because somebody burned the fucking ships," Dooku muttered.  
  
Sören kicked the back of his seat. "You mad, bro?"  
  
"I seem to recall that was the best makeup sex of our lives, so no, I can't be terribly upset," Dooku said, glancing at Sören in the rearview mirror.  
  
"Well, you taking me up against the wall of the cabin when you came back to me, in this life, comes pretty damn close." Sören reached up to squeeze his shoulder.  
  
"Don't tempt me to pull this car over and -"  
  
"You guys are worse than a couple horny teenagers," Maglor said.  
  
"We've always been that way," Sören said, and Maglor nodded, grinning.  
  
"The more things change, the more they stay the same. But don't pull the damn car over, we're already going to be on the road awhile as it is. Save your appetite for later."  
  
"And I want to look at the scenery," Sören said. "I've never been to Scotland."  
  
That feeling of new, exciting exploration gave way to an unsettling feeling of déjà vu as they drove into Fife county. Having a Force bond with his aunt wasn't a sufficient explanation, since Sören had bonds with other people that didn't produce the same feeling of "been here before" in other places. The glimpses he'd seen of St. Andrews in Claire's old blog pictures didn't explain it, either, as he'd only been able to look at it briefly before the emotions were too much to handle. The déjà vu was enough to make the hair on the back of Sören's neck and arms stand on end, and it intensified when they drove into the town of St. Andrews. It wasn't complete familiarity, Sören would still need to learn his way around, but Sören couldn't shake the sense that he'd been here, somehow, and reactions like  _there's the Whey Pat_.  
  
The déjà vu was practically screaming as they pulled into the parking area at the bed-and-breakfast Gitta and Jane ran. He'd never even seen pictures of it, and it looked exactly as the brief mental image he'd conjured up, his idea of it. Sören's jaw dropped as he got out of the Bentley. Then when Maglor got out of the car and their eyes met, he could tell from the haunted look on Maglor's face that he was having the same reaction. Dooku looked a little shaken up as well, though not as strongly at the two of them.  
  
"What the  _hell_  is this," Sören whispered.  
  
There were other cars in the parking area, and at the sound of his twin brother's voice, Dagnýr practically flew out of the bed-and-breakfast door, running towards Sören. Sören caught him in a fierce hug, and ruffled Dagnýr's short hair, which was back to its natural dark color after being platinum blonde for the wedding, though Dagnýr was showing the first few threads of silver as well. Dagnýr was wearing glasses, and they started to fog as they held each other, with Sören taking them off, looking into his fraternal twin's grey eyes, the same eyes of his mother and Gitta.  
  
_And Tindómion. And Maglor._  That reminder that they were of Elven blood.  
  
Gitta and Jane were coming out more slowly, with Matt behind them.  
  
"Sören, thank you for coming on such short notice," Jane called out, walking towards them.  
  
"Jane." Sören got choked up at the sight of her. She was already alarmingly thin at the wedding and now she had lost even more weight, and was moving slowly as if exhausted and in pain, a sharp contrast from what Gitta had told him about Jane being very active and strong for her age. The tears burned his eyes as Gitta and Jane held him and Dagnýr at the same time, and there was that brief moment of wondering  _what if_ , what if Gitta and Jane had been allowed to be involved in their lives, what if they'd been able to adopt them...  
  
Dooku was noticeably uncomfortable, as he and Jane were the same age and she was a reminder of what could have become of him if he hadn't taken Vanimórë's blood. Dooku was himself in the physical condition of someone decades younger, apart from his silver hair and wrinkles and a touch of arthritis, but the immortality had given him even more energy - Dooku had recently taken up running, something he'd stopped doing in his forties - and he looked almost apologetic as he approached Gitta and Jane to hug the both of them, like his immortality, that they knew he now had, was a slap in the face. But Gitta and Jane embraced him warmly; Jane kissed his cheek.  
  
"Margrét called just before you pulled in - she, Ari, Frankie, and Kol will be flying in, in about two hours," Gitta said.  
  
"Shit, I better call her and warn her to take a fucking train," Sören said.  
  
" _God._ " Dagnýr facepalmed. "We were ready to tear our hair out coming out of fucking Edinburgh."  
  
"Well, come in and have tea," Jane said. "Then I'll show you to your rooms."  
  
Gitta and Jane had their own living area in the bed-and-breakfast, which had a large window in the living room, denim blue damask wallpaper trim on blue-grey walls, and crocheted throws on the grey couches and armchairs, in the tones of earth and sky. Wooden furniture, including a few full bookshelves. Some interesting ceramic, glass, and stone pieces. A bone china tea service was brought in; Dooku was visibly pleased that it was Earl Grey, his favorite.  
  
A large brown Norwegian Forest Cat with blue eyes came over with an inquisitive chirp and hopped onto Sören's lap. Sören petted him, making cooing noises, feeling a stab of guilt at leaving his cat for two weeks, missing Snúdur already.  
  
"That's Riker," Jane said. At Dooku's little smile of amusement, Jane nodded and pointed to the other cats, who were circling now. "The black cat is LaForge - he's blind, too - the orange tabby is Crusher, and the one walking up to you who acts like he owns everything is Picard."  
  
Sören's laughter rang out, delighted. "Oh my  _god_ , that's amazing. You named them?"  
  
Gitta did the Vulcan hand salute, and Sören did it as well. "When I moved to Scotland," Gitta said, "I stayed at Jane's bed-and-breakfast before I had a place to stay. Which... ended up being staying here, with her. We bonded over Star Trek."  
  
"Star Trek, Wicca, books..." Jane nodded.  
  
"But not golf." Gitta made a face.  
  
"I still can't believe you," Jane said. "This is the home of golf, and you don't like golf."  
  
"I live in Canada and I don't like hockey," Dagnýr said. "They haven't deported me... yet."  
  
"It's because you make up for it with your love of Kraft Dinner," Matt teased.  
  
"Listen, Kraft Dinner is  _good shit._ "  
  
"We love mac-and-cheese. We love cheese anything," Sören said, and Dagnýr nodded emphatically. "It's one of the ways that we are  _very much_  twins. Well, that and our love of cock."  
  
Matt almost choked on his tea; Maglor's jaw dropped, Jane and Dooku scowled, and Gitta belly laughed.  
  
"Oh my  _god_ , Sören." Dagnýr facepalmed. "I can't believe you sometimes."  
  
"I have no brain-to-mouth filter, sorry," Sören said.  
  
"Technically I'm not gay, even though I'm married to a dude," Dagnýr said.  
  
"Oh, you're pansexual? Like our sister?"  
  
"I'm more... sapiosexual. I've been with both men and women over the years, I just haven't really talked about it because unlike  _some people_  I'm more private about that part of my life. But, yeah, brains turn me on, genitalia is an afterthought."  
  
"Braaaaaaaiiiiinnnnns," Sören said. "I didn't know you were a zombie."  
  
Dagnýr gave him a look. "Sören, I swear."  
  
Then Sören sighed, thinking of Frankie, thinking of Claire. The two exceptions in his history with men, though nothing had ever happened with either of them, or at least with Frankie  _not yet_. It was going to be strange to see her very soon in this place, with memories of Claire running rampant.  
  
Sensing Sören's sudden change of mood across their bond, Dagnýr spoke up. "Sören, when you visit me in Canada finally, you have to have poutine. You'll see why I decided to adopt Canada as my home."  
  
"Is that really why...?"  
  
Dagnýr laughed. "That's not really why, but you  _would_  be the kind of person to think that's serious." He explained to Gitta and Jane, "Sören is a cheese addict."  
  
"Hey now, I like some foods that don't have cheese. Maglor makes good Brazilian food," Sören said, patting him, "and Nico's Romanian food is to die for."  
  
"Oh, speaking of," Gitta said, glancing at Maglor, "should we still refer to you as Alejandro...?"  
  
"If you're around people who don't know about me," Maglor said, "then that would be best, to avoid potential awkward situations. Thank you for asking."  
  
"You're welcome."  
  
"When we have to change identities, Nico should be French," Sören said. "My first crush was on Jean-Luc Picard."  
  
Dooku facepalmed, laughing softly.  
  
"It's so cool your cats have Star Trek names," Sören said, continuing to skritch Riker, purring away.  
  
"They were all rescues," Gitta said. "They're getting up there in years, but still around for now."  
  
Sören felt ready to cry again, thinking of Gitta losing her cats after the loss of Jane, knowing how utterly devastated Dooku had been at losing Dragos; the cat's ashes sat on their fireplace mantle, next to the jar that held a bit of dirt from the farm that Tindómion had owned, where his ashes had been scattered after he'd been burned as a witch. Sören skritched Riker, trying to distract himself, but it wasn't working so well.  
  
"Look," Jane said, putting down her tea. Her tone was harsh, no-nonsense; Sören was struck by how much Jane reminded him of Dooku when Dooku went into "parent mode".  _Except Dooku doesn't have a thick Scottish accent._  "Sören. I asked you all to come out here because I really regret that we hadn't gotten to know each other sooner, and it's too late to make up for lost time, but what time we  _do_  have, I wanted to utilize... and make sure your last memories of me were happy ones. But that works both ways." She sighed, and her tone softened. "It's normal to have strong emotions about... all of this. I get that. But I'd really like you to try to enjoy yourself while you're out here, for both our sakes."  
  
"All right. I'm sorry -"  
  
"No need to apologize." Jane reached out to pat him. "But let's make some happy memories, aye?"  
  
After tea, Gitta and Jane showed Sören, Maglor and Dooku to their room, a large suite with a king-sized bed on the far end of the manse. "The walls are thick here," Gitta said.  
  
Sören's face burned, and he noticed Dooku and Maglor flush as well.  
  
"We'll be having dinner at seven o'clock," Gitta said. "Hopefully that'll give enough time for your cousin and sister and her partners to get in."  
  
"Shit, I gotta call her..." Sören dialed his sister's cell, and there was no answer, meaning she was probably already in-flight.  
  
"We can always save them something if they're late," Jane said, and Gitta nodded.  
  
After Sören, Maglor, and Dooku dropped off their luggage, they followed Jane and Gitta back out, who showed them around the grounds of the manse. They had a gazebo to sit in, a flower garden, a small pond that ducks were currently swimming on, and a vegetable garden, and farther out there was a chicken coop. "Our eggs are always fresh," Gitta said.  
  
"It's so peaceful out here," Sören said, as a breeze stirred his hair.  
  
"Aye, it is," Jane said, nodding. "This property has been in my family for some time, was why I chose to stay here instead of going off to the city. And I told them I'd rather die here than in a hospice." She looked down. "But enough about that, aye? You want to meet the chickens?"  
  
The noise from the coop got louder as they got closer. "That rooster strutting around is Kirk," Gitta said, smirking.  
  
Sören howled with laughter. "Of course it is."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Maglor and Dooku wanted to help with dinner, but Gitta and Jane insisted they spend their first night relaxing. While they waited for dinner to be ready, Maglor, Dooku, and Sören took a nap together, tangled up like cats.  
  
They were woken up for dinner by loud pounding on the door. "Oi! You cunts gonna shag the entire time you're here?"  
  
Sören blinked his eyes open and facepalmed, shaking with silent laughter. "Come in, Frankie."  
  
"I'm not gonna see your dicks again, am I?"  
  
"No."  
  
The door banged open and Sören swore he could hear the words  _too bad_  in Frankie's mind. She ran in and took a flying leap onto the bed, pouncing on Sören, and Margrét, Kol, and Ari followed in. Sören and Frankie hugged tight, rocking each other for a moment, and Sören surprised both of them by giving her a peck on the lips. The way Frankie's lips parted as he pulled back let him know she would have been happy with more, and Sören  _wanted_ , but now was not the time.  
  
Frankie hugged Maglor then, and gave Dooku a noogie. As Dooku spluttered with protest, then Margrét also put him in a headlock and gave him a noogie.  
  
"How was your flight?" Sören asked, his voice husky from sleep.  
  
"Our flight was fine. The way from the airport... not so much."  
  
"God, Margrét, I kept trying to call you, and your phone was off."  
  
"We took a taxi," Margrét said, "since none of us drives in the UK -" Frankie had taken public transit everywhere in London, or walked. "- and Jesus  _Christ_."  
  
"But we're here now," Kol said, patting her.  
  
"Yeah, and dinner smells delicious, whatever it is, so get up, you lot."  
  
Sören gave a mock salute that turned into giving her the middle finger, which Margrét gave back, and then Frankie gave the V, before Kol dragged them both out. Ari waved before stepping out.  
  
Dinner was roasted chicken, and mashed potatoes, wilted greens, and a side of baked macaroni and cheese with bread crumbs over it, "since I know you two like that," Gitta said, patting Sören and Dagnýr.  
  
Sören felt himself getting choked up again, feeling stupid about getting choked up over such a simple thing, but it was such a kind, motherly gesture. Once again, Sören wondered what if, all the years he'd been missing out on her love...  
  
... _what if I'd come to visit her years ago and run into Claire again._  Sören shoved mac-and-cheese in his mouth, not wanting to think about it. The thoughts continued to nag him.  _What if I'd kept in touch with Claire after her summer in Iceland, what if she hadn't killed herself and I came out to live with her after my suicide attempt..._  
  
In his mind's eye, he could see a brief flash then, of him and Claire sitting right here at the table, eating with them, but Jane was a little younger, in better health. Claire was showing them a ring on her finger,  _"Sören designed it,"_  making Sören blush and explain he just ordered custom work with a very specific idea. Then,  _"We're not Wiccan but we want you to officiate the wedding anyway."_  
  
Sören almost dropped his fork.  _What in the FUCK._  There was wishful thinking and then there was that. That was much more vivid.  
  
He remembered Vanimórë talking about other universes. The feeling of déjà vu as they drove through Fife county, through St. Andrews.  
  
_No come on, this is crazy shit._  
  
After dinner, the family sat in Gitta and Jane's living room to watch an episode of  _Star Trek: The Next Generation_. When Picard was on-screen in the opener, Sören said, "There's my other boyfriend," jokingly.  
  
"There's mine," Margrét said, pointing at Worf.  
  
"Mmm, Deanna," Frankie said. "All those dark curls... dark eyes... that sexy accent..." And then she looked at Sören, blushing fiercely.  
  
_Space. The final frontier._  
  
Sören's face was also burning now - it didn't help Kol seemed to have made the connection and was also staring at him - and, trying to get everyone's attention away from that, Sören yelled, "SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE? WRRRROWWWWWWW."  
  
Ari hit him with a pillow.  
  
Halfway through the episode, Gitta's cell phone went off, and when she saw who it was, she said, "I have to take it, excuse me." She got up from the couch and Sören heard her say, "Harrison, hello!" before she stepped into the kitchen.  
  
_Harrison. Where have I heard that name -_  The hair on Sören's neck and arms stood up again.  _Oh, shit._  
  
When the episode was over, Gitta and Jane took out a photo album. Sören had no photos of his mother or father, and when he saw that Gitta and Jane had some, he got choked up yet again, and tried to hide it. He also noticed that just like Dagnýr bore a strong resemblance to their mother and to Gitta, he himself bore a strong resemblance to their father, Sigurd. The pictures of Brynhildur and Sigurd's wedding, where Gitta had been maid of honor, were when Dagnýr also got choked up, and Jane casually used the Force to pass them a box of tissues.  
  
There were pictures of Sören, Dagnýr, and Margrét as children. Sören's eyes widened as he saw Brynhildur let little Magnús wear clothing more associated with girls in those days, a bonnet, ruffles, a lot of pastels. "Oh yes," Gitta said, nodding. "Even back then, there were signs - you picked out those outfits, I remember - and my sister was very accepting."  
  
"Katrín and Einar were very much not," Margrét said.  
  
"I imagine not." Gitta sighed. She took Margrét's hand. "I wish we'd been there. We would have supported you and let you wear whatever you want, and call yourself whatever you want. We would have helped you through your transition."  
  
"We would have had fun taking you clothes shopping," Jane said, and Gitta nodded.  
  
Margrét broke down crying. That was the dam that broke for Sören and Dagnýr too; the others were emotionally affected too, with Maglor blinking back tears.  
  
"You're very brave," Gitta said. "We were out back in the 1990s when it was... not really safe."  
  
"Our windows got bricked more than once," Jane said. "House egged. Car keyed, tires slashed. DIE DYKES was spraypainted on our car once, and we were so paranoid we had the car checked for a bomb before we drove it again."  
  
"Times have changed and people around here are pretty accepting now," Gitta said. "When Jane got diagnosed with cancer we had an onslaught of baked goods and casseroles and presents, people offering to volunteer in the kitchen, doing chores for us if we needed it."  
  
"But we still remember what it was like when you guys were children." Jane nodded. She glanced over at Dooku, who also nodded.  
  
"One of my colleagues died of AIDS and there was such a bigoted reaction, no compassion at all," Dooku said. "I was in the closet at the time. I admire you for being out in those days." He took Gitta and Jane's hands. Then he looked at Margrét and took her hand. "I admire you for your courage now."  
  
"It helps that we've got some more visible people these days," Margrét said, "but even back in the aughts it was still..."  
  
Sören nodded. "I remember that time you got beat up."  
  
"It was more than one time, but you were around for the one," Margrét said. "Even in a progressive country like Iceland I  _still_  went through that shit, I'm scared to think what would have happened if I lived in the States or something."  
  
"I wish we'd gotten to raise you," Gitta said, voicing Sören's own longing. "I can't say that people would have been more accepting here, back then, probably not, but you at least would have had our full support."  
  
"I hope Katrín and Einar are rotting in hell," Jane said. "And I'm Wiccan and normally don't believe in that sort of thing, but I like to think there's a special place just for people like them."  
  
"I'll drink to that," Dooku said.  
  
"Aye, you will." Jane got up, and came back with a bottle of Auchentoshan and a tray of shot glasses. She poured a shot glass for Dooku and for Maglor. She looked at Sören, and Sören said, "Do you have ice? Sorry."  
  
"I'll get that," Gitta said. She took Sören's glass and another one and came back with ice, and Jane poured the whisky over his ice, and then over the ice in Gitta's glass.  
  
"I don't know how anyone could not drink it neat," Jane said, making a face. "Ice waters it down. But not my business."  
  
"I'm in full agreement," Dooku said.  
  
"Yes, good." Jane glared at Gitta, who grinned, and kissed the tip of her nose.  
  
"You're so cute," Gitta told her.  
  
"I am not cute." Jane's glare intensified.  
  
"Yes, you are." Gitta booped her nose.  
  
_Remind you of anyone?_  Sören gave Dooku an amused look, and Dooku rolled his eyes, shaking with silent laughter.  
  
"To Katrín and Einar's dead bodies," Jane said, raising her glass.  
  
Everyone drank, and then Gitta added, "And their attempt at keeping us from you all because they were afraid we'd turn you gay. Clearly, they did a  _phenomenal_  job at raising you to be 100% heterosexual."  
  
Sören almost choked on his whisky, and teared up again, this time from laughter. Chuckling, he raised his glass.  
  
There were more pictures - Jane's family - and then, Gitta and Jane in their first years together. There was a fifteen-year age difference between them. In her early forties, Jane had looked younger - not conventionally attractive in the face, but a knockout hourglass figure that even Sören could appreciate. She had lovely auburn hair in those days, and was prone to wearing flamboyant hats even then, which Sören just thought had been because of the chemo making her lose her hair. Jane explained, "I always thought to myself, if I can't be pretty, I can be interesting."  
  
"Heh, I thought that about myself too," Frankie said.  
  
Sören reached over to rub Frankie's back.  _I've always thought you're beautiful,_  he spoke into her mind, and let it hang there.  
  
"Oh, darling." Gitta rolled her eyes at Jane. "You're a damn sight more than interesting."  
  
Sören couldn't get over how young Gitta looked in her twenties - at fifty-six she still didn't look much past the age of forty. Gitta had a very "girl next door" look to her, with a few pictures of her in reading glasses that were more "nerdy librarian". Candids of Jane playing golf, Gitta crocheting -  
  
"Did you make these?" Frankie asked, patting the throw behind her on the couch.  
  
"I did." Gitta nodded.  
  
Sören remembered his mother knitting and embroidering. "Can you teach me?" Frankie asked.  
  
"I'd love to!" Gitta's face lit up.  
  
"I can make chainmaille," Frankie said. "I like doing things with my hands."  
  
Sören's mind immediately went in the gutter and he looked away, face burning.  
  
"I'm gonna make you a hat," Frankie said to Sören.  
  
Ari snickered. "Should make him a Willy Warmer, in honor of the time you saw his -"  
  
_Takk, Ari, you're so helpful._  Sören shot his cousin a look, who smirked.  
  
_You think we all don't notice the two of you making eyes at each other?_  Ari raised his glass.  
  
_One of these days, when you find someone you're interested in, you wait. You just wait._  Sören knocked down the rest of his whisky.  
  
More pictures of Gitta and Jane over the years. Their wedding when same-sex marriage was legal in Scotland in 2014; their honeymoon in Jamaica.  At sixty-six Jane still had a gorgeous figure, showing off in a two-piece purple bikini, which made the way she was now, ravaged from chemo, even more of a startling and sad contrast. Then there were pictures of them with a tall young man, dark brown hair, bright blue eyes. Cute, though a bit young to be Sören's type. "And there's Harrison," Gitta said.  
  
"That was him who called...?" Sören asked.  
  
"Yes." Gitta nodded. She looked at Jane, who also nodded, and then Gitta said, "Since he moved to St. Andrews he's had a tradition of eating dinner with us at least once a week. Ordinarily that's Tuesday nights. Which is tomorrow. We wanted to run it by you guys first since we know he's a stranger -"  
  
"His cousin wasn't a stranger," Sören said. His eyes met Maglor's, and Maglor looked away. "I'd like to meet him."  
  
"All right. I'll call him back and let him know he's welcome tomorrow."  
  
Sören's heart started racing a little, with him feeling a frisson that meeting him would be important, somehow.  
  
After the photo album was finished, Margrét, Frankie, and Kol excused themselves for the night. Dooku wanted to sit in the gazebo for awhile, and Matt and Ari offered to sit there and keep him company. Gitta said she would also join them out there, but first...  
  
"Sören, Dag, come here."  
  
Gitta pulled out a couple pictures of Brynhildur, and Brynhildur and Sigurd, before she put the album away. "I have enough, I can part with these."  
  
Sören teared up and threw his arms around his aunt. Dagnýr hugged them both. " _Þakka þér kærlega fyrir, þetta þýðir mikið,_ " Dagnýr said; Sören knew that Dagnýr reverting to his native Icelandic meant something was a big deal, something he only did now when emotions were high.  
  
Gitta kissed his forehead. " _Þú ert velkomin, sætur strákur minn._ " She gave a sad little smile. "I hope my Icelandic isn't too rusty."  
  
" _Nei, það er samt gott._ " Sören patted her.  
  
Gitta nodded. "I'm gonna take care of the dishes -"  
  
"Let me help," Dagnýr said.  
  
"Me too," Sören said.  
  
"No, it's fine. Actually, Jane told me earlier she'd like to go down for a walk to the Harbour, if you want to accompany her?"  
  
Jane and Maglor were getting ready to do that now. "Are you sure you're up for doing this?" Maglor asked, steadying her as she put her shoes on.  
  
"Quite. I may be slower now, but I want to still do things while I can do them." Jane gave him a stern look. Then she glanced over at Sören and Dagnýr approaching. "You'll be joining us?"  
  
Sören took Jane's hand, and she leaned on Maglor, with Dagnýr walking behind as they made their way. It was twilight now, and the first stars were in the sky. Sören looked up and thought of Claire again.  
  
At the sea, the feeling of déjà vu returned, much stronger now. Jane was leaning on Dagnýr, slowly strolling down the beach, and Maglor reached for Sören.  
  
_You can feel it too,_  Sören spoke into his mind.  
  
Maglor nodded.  _I've been here before._  We've  _been here before. Just not... in this universe._  
  
Maglor pressed his forehead against Sören's, nuzzling him, and a series of images skittered across Sören's mind's eye.  
  
_Maglor playing guitar on a beach, Sören and Claire watching him. Later, Sören down on one knee in the sand, slipping a ring onto Claire's finger, and Maglor playing just for them._  
  
Because the night belongs to lovers  
Because the night belongs to us  
  
_Later, in winter, Sören, Claire, and Maglor walking along the same beach together, Sören holding both their hands. The three taking turns kissing..._  
  
Sören's jaw dropped.  _The fuck._  Sören looked up at Maglor.  
  
_We were meant to come here._  Their eyes met.  _I don't just mean to see Jane before..._  
  
_Yeah, I know._  
  
_I suppose we'll find out. In the meantime..._  Maglor put his arms around Sören, pulling him close, petting his curls.  _I'm glad we didn't lose each other here._  
  
Sören tilted his face up and kissed the tip of Maglor's nose. "Hi glad we didn't lose each other here -"  
  
Maglor swatted his bottom.  
  
Sören groped his ass in return.  _In Soviet Scotland, son spanks you?_  
  
Maglor buried his face in Sören's shoulder, shaking with laughter. "Why are you like this?"  
  
"Because." And then Sören leaned in to give him a soft, sweet little kiss.  
  
The kiss didn't stay chaste for long, with Maglor taking Sören's face in his hands and kissing him hard, deep. Sören's hands ran through Maglor's hair, then over his chest, lost in passion, wanting to be taken right there -  
  
Dagnýr cleared his throat. "Hey you guys, er."  
  
Sören gave a guilty laugh, pulling away. "Uh." He ran a nervous hand through his curls.  
  
"Do I have to supervise you like a couple teenagers?" Jane wagged a finger, though there was amusement in her eyes. She rolled her eyes as she said, "At least I don't have to worry about you getting pregnant..."  
  
"Oh my god." Sören snorted. Maglor blushed.  
  
They sat for a bit so Jane could rest, and Sören snuggled onto Maglor, enjoying the way Maglor pet him, his touch soothing after the pain of remembering Claire, longing for what could have been.  
  
Maglor started to sing. Sören recognized Sarah McLachlan, since Ari was a fan of hers.  
  
_I write your name down in the swollen sand and I walk out in the waves  
I know you’re here I feel you all around me  
In this sea of soothing grey  
I don’t even feel the cold it’s warm as you wash over me  
  
Safe in the arms of surrender and certainty  
Caught in a moment and sure I’ll be carried  
Take me back down to the water to feel that sure  
Of anything..._


	47. Blood of My Blood

**Blood of My Blood**

 

 

The next day, Sören was woken up by the cock crowing, and before he could go back to sleep he was roused fully awake by two hard cocks pressing against him on either side. After a sensual, languid round of Sören, Maglor, and Dooku sucking each other to climax, they got up, took a shower together - stroked each other to a second climax in the shower - and then got dressed and went out to Gitta and Jane's portion of the manse.   
  
The family had a full breakfast together, and Jane asked, "What are your plans for the day?"  
  
"We should go sightseeing," Frankie said, tugging at Sören's sleeve.  
  
"You want to do that tomorrow? On foot? I'm feeling the urge to sketch or paint," Sören said.  
  
"All right."  
  
"We can do some exploring ourselves in the meantime," Margrét told her.  
  
"You guys up for us tagging along?" Dagnýr raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Of course."  
  
"Are you up for playing golf?" Dooku asked Jane.  
  
"I sure am." Jane smiled.  
  
Dagnýr and Matt went off with Margrét, Frankie, and Kol. Ari offered to hang back and help Gitta with chores, which she didn't decline for once. Dooku and Jane climbed into the Bentley. Sören and Maglor went back to the Harbour, with Maglor bringing his guitar this time, and Sören bringing his sketch pad.  
  
After Maglor had been playing for some time - melancholy minor chords, the beginning of what sounded like a new song - Sören realized he was sketching Claire standing on the beach. And when Sören showed it to Maglor, he teared up.  
  
"I never even met her, I don't know why I'm reacting like this," Maglor said.  
  
"Because you met her elsewhere, and your heart knows her." Sören nodded. He was tearing up too. "We only knew each other for one summer and  _I'm_  reacting like this. It's..." He put the sketch pad down.  
  
"OK. Well, we need to try to pull ourselves together between now and dinner," Maglor said. "I know we have some hours but we could easily cry all the way till then."  
  
They walked along the shore awhile, Maglor carrying his guitar case, and then they walked back to the bed-and-breakfast, with plans to cuddle and relax together. As they were coming in, a tall man was coming out. And Sören stopped, realizing he recognized him from the wedding. His hair had been styled differently, for the 80s theme of the party -  
  
"Hey, it's, ah, Kajagoogoo!"  
  
Maglor facepalmed. "Hells, Sören, that's not his name." Maglor smiled apologetically. "Eden, right?"  
  
"Yes, Eden Dale."  
  
_Riiiight,_  Sören heard Maglor broadcast.  _You're Eden Dale as much as I'm Mark Lowry._  
  
"You don't live up here, do you?" Sören asked. "You don't sound Scottish."  
  
"No, London, though London gets a bit crowded for me. I'd met Gitta and Jane at the wedding and they invited me to come stay at their bed-and-breakfast next time I needed to get away, so here I am." Eden smiled.  
  
Sören thought he had a gorgeous smile, like he could be a supermodel. He had a chiseled face - there was a bit of a resemblance to Maglor, like there was a relation somehow. Eden had white-blonde hair to the middle of his back, and was dressed casually, though with an effortless elegance. He smelled delicious. Sören remembered the way Eden had winked at him at the wedding, and his pulse raced a little.  _He's hot._  He thought his casual sex days were over but something about Eden got him randy.  
  
_How many extra partners do you need,_  Sören chastised himself.  
  
"Well, uh... you're on your way out, right?" Sören asked.  
  
"For a bit."  
  
"OK. Enjoy your afternoon, Kajagoogoo." Sören immediately facepalmed, knowing that wasn't his name, and it slipped out anyway.  
  
Then Sören and Maglor ducked inside. Maglor gave him an annoyed look, then he started laughing. "Sören, I can't even with you sometimes."  
  
"I can't even with me either, and I'm not even drunk or high."  
  
Back in their room, Sören and Maglor curled up on the bed. Watching  _Star Trek: The Next Generation_  last night had put Sören in the mood to watch more episodes, so that was running on the TV, but waking up early and the long walk and the emotional exhaustion made Sören a little tired, and Maglor's petting soothed him enough to fall asleep.  
  
When Sören woke up later Maglor was still holding him, and Sören smiled as Maglor rained kisses over his face. They rubbed noses, and Sören stroked his cheek, played with a strand of his hair. "How long was I asleep?" Sören asked.  
  
"Couple hours. Not long."  
  
Sören yawned and stretched, and snuggled against Maglor. "You're cozy."  
  
"I'm Maglor."  
  
Sören tweaked his nose, glaring, and Maglor laughed. "You can dish it out but can't take it?" Maglor kissed the top of Sören's head.  
  
"You can't out-brat me." Sören used the Force to unzip the backpack he'd used as a carry-on, and the Brat tiara floated out, onto Sören's head.  
  
"I can try." With that, Maglor tickled him.  
  
The two rolled around on the bed, tickling each other, until Sören disarmed Maglor with a kiss. Maglor responded with a hunger that surprised both of them, and soon they were both hard, petting and groping each other, feverishly necking like horny teenagers.  
  
Maglor undid Sören's belt and then his jeans, yanking them down, then the boxer-briefs, and Sören's cock sprang free. Sören groaned as Maglor ducked down to take his cock into his mouth, sucking hard and fast, like he was starving for it. Sören grabbed Maglor's hair, arching to him, panting. It didn't take long for Maglor to bring him off that way, Sören giving a little whimper as warning before he erupted in Maglor's mouth, an orgasm so intense he couldn't even cry out, the world falling away in a shuddery gasp. He was panting, trembling, when Maglor came up to kiss him, and Sören made a little purring noise at tasting himself on Maglor's mouth.  
  
Sören reached down to palm the bulge in Maglor's jeans, and then there was a knock on their door.  
  
" _Hells._ " Maglor rolled his eyes and called out, "Who is it."  
  
"Police," came Kol's voice. "We have a warrant for Sören's dad jokes."  
  
"Are you guys decent?" Margrét asked.  
  
"Uh." Sören looked at Maglor, and Maglor pulled up a sheet to hide Sören's exposed cock and his own hard-on. "I guess."  
  
The door opened, and when Margrét saw the sheet covering their lower halves she facepalmed. "Jesus Christ, Sören."  
  
Frankie shook with laughter, turning red. "Don't tell me you guys fucked with that thing on," she said, pointing to the Brat tiara.  
  
"No, we didn't fuck with that thing on." Sören grinned, and couldn't help himself. "He gave me a blowjob with that thing on."  
  
Margrét took a few steps out of the room. "Sören, I swear to god."  
  
Maglor cleared his throat and folded his hands on his lap. "To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?"  
  
Sören cracked up laughing at how serious and professional Maglor sounded, made worse when Kol said, "You, um, have something on your chin and your shirt."  
  
It was Sören's cum. Frankie buried her face in her hands for a moment, and when she pulled her hands off her face she was even more red, tears in her eyes as her entire body heaved.  
  
"OK, seriously,  _what._ " Maglor raised an eyebrow as he wiped his chin with a tissue and then surveyed the white stain on the collar of his black shirt, flushing a little.  
  
"We bought you some shit," Margrét said. "When you're actually decent come down to our room and see it."  
  
Frankie put an arm around Kol's waist and led him out, waving, giggling. The Force slammed the door shut, and Sören used the Force to pull down the sheet, getting off the bed to pull his boxer-briefs and jeans back up. He looked over at Maglor. "You want me to take care of you before..."  
  
"They kind of killed the mood," Maglor said, laughing.  
  
"Awwww." Sören made a moue. "I can make it up to you later?"  
  
"All right." Maglor got up and stretched. "I should change my shirt."  
  
Sören snorted.  
  
Kol, Margrét and Frankie had gone shopping, among other activities, and had a couple small presents for Sören and Maglor. They'd gotten Sören a stuffed sheep, which made Sören squeal and pick him up and hug him and twirl around with the sheep... then Sören started making sheep noises. Maglor received a hardbound paper journal with a cover that had a photo of the Harbour on it, trimmed with gilded knotwork against a background of faded ocean waves, and the paper inside was all parchment.  
  
"I know you were always composing in notebooks and writing stuff down in Reykjavik," Margrét said.  
  
Maglor got up and gave her a hug. " _Takk,_  Margrét."  
  
Margrét ruffled his hair. "Welcome back to the family, you." She folded her arms. "You guys made a great couple and I missed your friendship, I'm glad you're back together."  
  
"You ever hurt Sören again, though..." Frankie scowled.  
  
Maglor put an arm around Sören. "No, I'm around for good."  
  
Sören leaned in to give him a little kiss, then he said, "Hi around for good..."  
  
Margrét used the Force to pick up Maglor's journal and whack Sören in the face with it. Sören used the Force to make the sheep fly at her, and then Margrét physically picked up a pillow off the bed and hit Sören with it. Margrét, Frankie, and Kol ended up in a pillow fight with Sören and Maglor, feathers flying, which is how Jane and Dooku found them when they were paused in the doorway, back from a day of golf.  
  
"Are they always like this?" Jane asked Dooku.  
  
"No," Dooku said. "They're worse."  
  
  
_  
  
Sören had pretty much forgotten the Brat tiara was still on his head when he was sitting in Gitta and Jane's living room, cuddling with Dooku, Maglor, and the cats, and there was a knock at the door. Gitta got up, and Sören immediately felt a surge of anxiety, pulse racing, when he heard her call out, "Harrison, hi!"  
  
A tall young man with curly dark brown hair and bright blue eyes walked in and gave Gitta a hug. Jane slowly made her way over to him and hugged him as well. Maglor reluctantly started pulling the cats off them and he, Dooku, and Sören stood up.  
  
Gitta walked Harrison over. "Harrison, this is Mr. Dooku, and Alejandro, and Sören..."  
  
"Sigurdsson?" Harrison raised an eyebrow.  
  
Sören's jaw dropped. Then he nodded and put out his hand. "Hi, Harrison."  
  
Harrison took it.  
  
"I'll get the others," Jane said, heading towards the back door.  
  
Ari poked out from the kitchen. "Hello?"  
  
"And that's Sören's cousin Ari. He's been insisting to help us with things while he's here, such a dear." Gitta waved at him and then gestured for him to come out. "Ari, take a break."  
  
Ari stepped out from the kitchen, wearing a "KISS THE COOK" apron that made Sören snicker at it. "Nice apron," he said.  
  
"Nice hat," Ari said, glancing at Sören.  
  
"Oh my god, do I still..."  
  
"You didn't know?" Maglor's eyebrows shot up.  
  
"Oh my  _god._ " Sören facepalmed. "Well, I suppose I'll just leave it on now that you've seen it. Great first impression."  
  
"It's an honest first impression," Dooku said, patting him.  
  
Harrison chuckled at that, and then he shook Ari's hand. Their eyes held for a moment, and Ari smiled. "Dinner's almost ready," he told Gitta.  
  
"Wonderful. I'll go put on the finishing touches," Gitta said. "You sit down for awhile, Ari." She patted him.  
  
Margrét, Frankie, Kol, Dagnýr and Matt came in from outside. "Oh, it's a new victim!" Dagnýr said, and then added, "New person, I mean."  
  
"OK, Dag," Margrét said, "let's not scare them away... yet."  
  
After more introductions, Jane served tea, and there was the inevitable, obligatory "what do you do" discussion, which continued as dinner was being served. Dagnýr and Margrét were fairly animated about their respective jobs as an astrophysicist and bar owner respectively, while Sören's explanation of his job was more straightforward.  
  
"I'm an artist," he said, "and I run an art studio in Akureyri, people take classes. Both adults and children. Different kinds of things - pastels, watercolors, oils and acrylics, ceramics. Have a pretty healthy number of students."  
  
"Oh." Harrison seemed genuinely surprised by this. "You're not a doctor?"  
  
There was no way Harrison would have known about him being in med school unless... "Claire told you about me?"  
  
The name had finally been spoken. It took a moment - Sören saw him swallow hard - and then Harrison nodded. "Yeah, she did."  
  
"I'm... really surprised. But touched, that she considered me worth mentioning." It was a bit more than touching - Sören could feel himself choking up a little, but he didn't want to be a wet blanket and ruin dinner, so he turned to Maglor. "Er. Alejandro also teaches at the studio."  
  
"You're an artist too?" Harrison looked at his hands.  
  
"No," Maglor said. "Musician. I teach piano and guitar."  
  
"Oh, I'm a music teacher too."  
  
That got into "shop talk" for a bit, and then Margrét asked Harrison, "So you wanted to teach music for a living in a place like this, rather than somewhere like London, with more of a scene? I'm asking out of curiosity, not judgment, because I have a band and it's why I stay in Reykjavik instead of moving back home to Akureyri." Sören heard the unspoken  _That and the memories, since I was almost killed up there._  
  
"Well, I went to school up here," Harrison said. "I'm from Sheffield, and when I was twelve, my cousin... Claire..." He swallowed hard again. "Took me on a trip, because seeing Scotland was on her bucket list."  
  
_Oh god._  Sören blinked back tears.  _She was planning..._  Once again, he wanted to smack himself for not keeping in touch with her after she went back to the UK.  _Maybe I could have done something..._  
  
Maglor squeezed his hand under the table, knowing.  
  
"So, after she passed on, I decided to attend school here, sort of in honor of her. And, well..." Harrison looked at Gitta and Jane. "They kind of adopted me."  
  
"So you're kind of our cousin," Dagnýr said.  
  
"I guess so." Harrison nodded.  
  
_You could have been my cousin-in-law, if things had gone differently._  That thought threatened to break Sören, who was taking slow, deep breaths now, trying to keep calm and composed despite the tears in his eyes. He hadn't necessarily been thinking of marriage when he met Claire in 2003 and developed feelings for her, but he thought about the vision he'd seen at the Harbour, getting down on one knee in the sand. The ring.  _Somewhere, in another universe..._  "Harrison," Sören said, and all eyes were on him.  
  
Harrison's eyes especially, locked with his. Harrison's own eyes were too bright.  
  
"You should know." Sören's voice was husky with emotion. "I met Claire in 2003, when she was on vacation in Reykjavik."  
  
"I know, actually," Harrison said, after a moment.  
  
"She..."  
  
"She told me about you, yes."  
  
"It's how you knew my patronymic?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Sören's jaw dropped again. Harrison sipped his water, poker-faced, but Sören could feel that Harrison, too, was crumbling quite a bit.  
  
"She was lost," Sören went on.  _God... that seems so symbolic now._  He blinked back tears, closed his eyes for a moment.  _Nothing is ever ended_ , he heard Vanimórë's voice in his head. Vanimórë, who he loved, and who was also gone, probably would never see him again. He remembered what Vanimórë told him about France. But 2047 seemed so far away, and even then there was no absolute guarantee he'd find what he was looking for... "I decided to be helpful, even though people kind of scare me a little, she seemed so nice. And I found out her grandfather had just died, so... I got the idea that I'd be kind of her unofficial tour guide and try to cheer her up."  
  
Harrison nodded. "She told me about that."  
  
"Really?"  
  
"Yeah. She couldn't stop talking about you for awhile." Harrison sipped his water again.  
  
Sören's heart skipped a beat at that. And he found himself admitting the truth. "I still think about her. Well, for awhile I tried not to, because she was 'the one that got away'."  
  
Harrison's eyebrows shot up at that.  
  
"It was 2003," Sören explained. "I came out as gay two years prior to that -"  
  
"Yeah, I knew, even without seeing you with your... partners?" Harrison looked at Maglor, then Dooku.  
  
Sören put a hand on each of them. "Married to this one," he said, patting Dooku. Then he glanced at Maglor. "Polygamy's not legal but we want to do some kind of, ah, I guess you could call it spiritual ceremony and recognize him as our other husband. Our anniversary's coming up and we thought it would be a good time then. But anyway, back to Claire."  
  
"Right." Harrison squirmed a little, and Sören could see he was trying to hold back crying as well. Sören restrained the urge to get up and go over and give him a hug, not sure if it would be welcome or not.  
  
"Iceland's a pretty liberal country," Sören said, "but I'm from a small town and when I came out I got some shit about it at the time. When I went to Reykjavik for school, it was better, but the thing is... 2003 was a different time to be queer. Back then there was a lot more 'oh you're just confused' if you admitted to being bi. And since all my history had been with men, and Claire was the first girl I found myself attracted to... it was confusing even for me, never mind trying to explain it to her, or other people. She didn't have a problem with me being gay at all whatsoever, but I worried that if I told her 'I like you too', she'd have a problem with  _that_ , that it would make things weird, that even if she didn't think I was a hopeless dork, she'd think I was 'sitting on the fence' or she'd have to compete with men, or, worse, I'd give her a disease. I was in med school then, yes, and there isn't a high HIV rate in Iceland at all, but studying to become a doctor makes you more conscious about things like that and there's a stigma wherever you go that men who have sex with men are higher-risk and there's a misconception that bi men are disease carriers. I say misconception because it's a load of bollocks, scientifically, but it's a load of bollocks that persists."  
  
Harrison nodded. "I'm just gay, not bi, but I've seen biphobia even now, I imagine it was worse then. So you didn't say anything."  
  
"No, I didn't, and I regretted it. And..." Sören took a deep breath. He covered his face with his hands for a moment, feeling the sharp stab of guilt, of grief. "I felt so awkward about my feelings for her, and I was in such a shitty place of my own mentally, that when she went back to the UK, we dropped out of touch. Every now and again I thought about calling or e-mailing her, but med school and my internship was fucking  _brutal_  on me. I, myself, attempted suicide during the Christmas holidays in 2004."  
  
"Jesus," Harrison said.  
  
"I have mental health issues," Sören said. "Post-traumatic stress disorder. And it got pretty fucking bad after she went back to the UK. Er, sorry, language -"  
  
"It's all right. I have a sailor mouth."  
  
"OK, good. Well, not good. You know what I mean." Sören took a deep breath. "I really, really wish I'd kept in touch with her. That I hadn't gotten so far bogged down in my own shit, that." His voice broke a little. "I feel like a selfish arse -"  
  
Maglor pressed a napkin to Sören's tears and when Sören took the napkin with a mumbled " _takk_ ," Maglor put his arms around him, planted a kiss on the top of Sören's head, nuzzled his curls.  
  
"I'm sorry," Sören said, sobbing a little. "This is supposed to be a happy family dinner, Jane wants good memories of us, and -"  
  
"Sören, it's all right." Jane nodded. "It's understandable."  
  
"I ruin everything." Justin's words  _You ruin everything_  echoed across his mind. Sören closed his eyes, still able to see his face sometimes. Even with Justin being dead...  _Nothing is ever ended._  And not that, either.  
  
"You haven't ruined anything." Harrison reached across the table and put a hand on Sören's arm, a reassuring gesture. "On the contrary, it means... a lot... to know you cared so much about Claire."  
  
"I really, really did." Sören nodded. "I wonder sometimes how things would have been if -"  
  
Harrison took a deep breath. "I think we all wonder how it would have been if she didn't." He blinked back tears.  
  
"And she talked about me to you? Really?"  
  
Harrison nodded. "She never came right out and said she had feelings for you but even then, as a twelve-year-old boy, I could  _tell_  because my friends in school got the same exact way when they talked about boys or girls they liked. I would be willing to bet money that your feelings for her were returned, and I only bet on sure things."  
  
"Fuck." Sören got up, feeling like his heart was going to explode. He had been so sure Claire would reject him, which had contributed to his hesitancy to keep in contact with her, not wanting to pine away when he was in such a bad emotional state. "Excuse me."  
  
He went to the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face, and the torrent came. He doubled over the sink, sobbing. Loud, ugly sobbing that no doubt people could hear in the dining room.  _Fuck. I ruin everything -_  
  
He'd locked the bathroom door, and there was a knock. "Sören," came Dooku's deep voice.  
  
"Fuck." Sören used the Force to unlock the door.  
  
Dooku stepped in, and he pulled Sören into his arms, rocking him, petting him. Sören fell apart, face buried in Dooku's chest. "Nico," he wept. "God..."  
  
"Shhhhh." Dooku stroked his curls, kissed his forehead. "Sören.  _Elskan._  My love. It's all right."  
  
"It's not all right. Claire's dead and it's my fault -"  
  
"It's not your fault. Just like it's not  _her_  fault you attempted suicide at the end of 2004. You were ill."  _Still are._ Sören still had PTSD, he would have that for life. What would now be his very long life, battling the black dog of depression for an eternity. "She was ill. You can't spend your life beating yourself up wondering if she'd still be alive if you kept in touch with her. When a person commits suicide, it's never just  _one_  thing that sets them off, it's something that builds. And judging from all the accounts of loved ones who are left behind, heartbroken, Claire had other people who loved her, so even if you'd kept in touch she might have done it  _anyway_. Just like  _you_  might have attempted suicide anyway, am I correct?"  
  
"Já, unfortunately." And then Sören could see it in his mind's eye. Waking up in the hospital at the end of 2004, angry that he was still alive... and Claire, calling him.  _"I tried calling you on Christmas Eve to say Happy Christmas and you weren't answering your phone..."_  Breaking down in tears. Claire telling him,  _"A change of pace might do you some good. Come to London for awhile and stay with me, yeah?"_  Later, her picking him up at Heathrow Airport, he'd started growing his hair out, growing a beard.  _"Sören. You look... good."_  
  
He closed his eyes. Wherever that universe was... it was almost like it was immanent, here. He could feel her. He could feel another version of Maglor.  _Like in that universe, we live here in St. Andrews..._  
  
He could see her eyes, as if he was looking into their world, she was looking into his.  
  
He shivered again and broke out in gooseflesh.  
  
"It's all right," Dooku said again, rocking him. "It's all right, love. You'll see her again. And when you do, Macalaurë and I will make  _damn sure_  you get it right this time."  
  
"Is that a promise?"  
  
Dooku nodded.   
  
"So you'd be fine with me having another partner."  
  
Dooku took a deep breath. "Macalaurë and I have discussed it and, yes. While we're on that topic... you should really say something to Frankie."  
  
"Oh Jesus Christ."   
  
"Christ has nothing to do with it," Dooku said. He gave Sören a stern look. "You need to have a talk with Frankie."  
  
"I will when the time is right. I don't know if -"  
  
"You're spending time with her tomorrow, yes?"  
  
"That... doesn't mean... the time will be right then. Look, Nico, I don't have a lot of friends, and she and I are already in complex partner situations without making things more complicated by crossing that line. Once the proverbial worm is out of the can..." Sören snickered. "Well... it's a pretty big worm..."  
  
Dooku facepalmed, but shook with silent laughter. "Sören..."  
  
Sören cleared his throat and attempted to look serious. "I'm just saying. I don't know if I'm ready to cross that line or not. I'll have to play it by ear."  
  
"Fair enough. Now." He swatted Sören's bottom. "Come back to dinner."  
  
  
_  
  
  
When Sören lived in London, after he met Frankie, they spent countless hours walking around the city together - though for the year he was with Justin, there had been far less of that, resuming once Justin was out of the picture.  
  
Sören thought about how much he missed that as he walked around St. Andrews now with Frankie, hand-in-hand, sometimes arm-in-arm, like they used to do. They didn't say much, as neither of them were prone to small talk, though every now and again they made commentary on something they saw.  
  
Sören found that the déjà vu continued to prove true as they walked, and he recognized certain landmarks before he got close enough to confirm what they were. And then he saw a familiar face and that unnerved him even more.  
  
"Sören, Frankie, hello," Eden said, smiling.  
  
"Hi. Eden. I got your name right this time!" Sören made fingerguns.  
  
Frankie cackled and elbowed him. "Eden? What the bloody hell are you doing up here!"  
  
"I'm staying at a bed-and-breakfast -"  
  
"Wait. Wait, wait. Is it the same one we're all staying at?" Frankie's eyebrows raised.  
  
"If you're staying where Sören is staying that would be the same place, yes."  
  
"How did we not know any of this..."  
  
"How do you guys even know each other?" Sören asked, giving them each a confused look.  
  
"He's an old friend of Kol's, and he's come to visit from London now and again. Was why he was invited to the wedding." Frankie glanced at Eden, who nodded.  
  
"Mkay." Sören wondered if Frankie was aware Kol wasn't human, and he wondered how he and this "Eden" were "old friends". He decided not to press any of that in the middle of a public place.  
  
"Would you like to have ice cream?" Eden asked them. "It's a nice warm day."  
  
That was what they did, at Jannetta's. Eden paid for them to get whatever they want. Frankie tried Irn Bru ice cream, and Sören had the chili chocolate gelato - each of them made a face at the other's selection.  
  
"So you said you needed to get away, when I bumped into you," Sören said.  
  
"Yes. I go on vacation about four times a year, around the change of seasons."  
  
"Jæja, I remember the equinox is coming up. My one-year wedding anniversary with Nico, and... we better get on making plans for Ma - Alejandro." Sören had a large spoonful of gelato, self-conscious at the near-slip.  
  
"Congratulations," Eden said. "It's nice to see people who are happy together. You looked very well together at the wedding."  
  
Sören remembered the wink, flushing.  _I bet._  
  
"Kol should be happy to see you," Frankie said.  
  
"I'll catch up with him later this evening, perhaps," Eden said.  
  
Frankie let out a little amused snort, and Sören caught it, and his face burned even more.  
  
_Wow. They're even more poly than we are. ...For now._  Sören had another bite of gelato, wondering what it would be like to "catch up" with Kol and Eden at the same time.  _Dammit, brain, why are you like this._  
  
"You know," Sören said, "I know I barely know you, but clearly you know my sister and Frankie and Kol, and Gitta and Jane seemed to like you well enough to invite you up here, so maybe you could have dinner with the family one of these nights while we're all here..."  
  
"I wouldn't want to impose," Eden said.  
  
"I don't think you'd be imposing." Sören rubbed his beard, feeling a little nervous, the way he always did with social things, but he felt  _compelled._  "Maybe sometime between now and the, ah, ceremony thing? I think even though the equinox is on Monday, we're going to do Sunday the 22nd because Nico and I got married on the 22nd last year..."  
  
"I'd feel better if you asked the rest of your family first, because I really don't want to intrude."  
  
"I will, but I guarantee you if you're good friends with Kol, and Margrét and Frankie like you, which it seems like..."  
  
"Oh yes," Frankie said, nodding.  
  
"... it wouldn't be an intrusion. We have this tendency of adopting people. And at the very least I'd like to get to know one of my sister's friends, because I'm pretty close to Margrét."  _I'm closer to Margrét than I am to Dag._  It was something Sören always felt a bit guilty about, because Dagnýr was his twin, but Dagnýr had left for Oxford when they were fourteen and Sören and Margrét had walked through fire together.  
  
"All right."  
  
"What do you do in London, if you don't mind me asking?"  
  
"I work for Apollyon Enterprises."  
  
"Which is... how you know Van."  
  
Poker face. "Yes."  
  
_Curiouser and curiouser._  Sören sipped his tea. "I'm just an artist," he said.  
  
"Actually, I knew that. Van showed me the pieces he owns from you. You're quite remarkable."  
  
Sören's mouth opened.  
  
He looked at Eden then, like he was seeing him for the first time.  _Gorgeous._  He felt a strange frisson he couldn't explain. "You'd be an interesting subject to paint," Sören said.  
  
"Oh my god, yes, you should  _totally_  paint Eden," Frankie said, shaking Sören's shoulders.  
  
Eden laughed into his tea.  
  
"Maybe while we're both in St. Andrews I could sketch you. Or if that doesn't work, next time you're in Iceland, come up to Akureyri..." Sören swallowed. "Or both. I've painted a couple people more than once."  
  
"We'll see what time allows for, but I'd be honored."  
  
"I'm honored that you're honored."  
  
"Hi honored," Frankie muttered, and Sören kicked her under the table.  
  
_That's my line._  
  
Frankie flashed him a grin that made Sören feel stomach flutters.  
  
After they were finished with their ice cream, Sören and Frankie headed back out together. "He seems nice," Sören said.  
  
"He's a good bloke." Frankie cackled. "Or Kol seems to think he's good, anyway."  
  
Sören facepalmed, laughing. "Oh god." He didn't need the mental image of Kol and Eden going at it, which threatened to make him hard in public. He didn't need Frankie's body shaking with laughter, watching her breasts, remembering the times he'd seen her topless.  _Fuck._  
  
They kept walking. "This is nice," Frankie said. "I wish you lived closer so we could do this more often."  
  
"I know, but I don't want to live in Reykjavik again."  
  
"Awww. I understand, though." She squeezed his hand. "Your new house is really nice."  
  
"You guys found a new place yet?"  
  
"We have! We're gonna start moving in once we get back. Then you'll have to come out and see it. We'll actually have a guest room for you. Though..." Frankie gave him a look. "Have to keep the noise down, or your sister might have an issue."  
  
"You guys didn't exactly keep the noise down when -"  
  
Frankie blushed. "How much did you hear?"  
  
"Enough."  _Enough to make me think about fucking your brains out._  Sören's mind went there again, wanting to make her moan.  
  
Frankie changed the subject. "Margrét's looking forward to decorating. She wants a black and red theme, and more of that Japanese aesthetic she has going."  
  
"We'll have to get you guys a housewarming present, or something."  
  
"You don't have to spend money on us -"  
  
"I'd like to be able to spoil you a little."  _With my tongue._  Sören could have smacked himself.  
  
"You're always a sweetheart. I remember when we lived in London and we didn't have much and you still got me little surprises now and again." Frankie sighed. "It makes me feel  _really_  bad about when I was so deep in that depression that I couldn't keep my room clean, with the nice things you gave me, I'm usually neat -"  
  
"I don't think a lot of people understand how crippling depression can be, but I sure do." Sören patted her. "I knew you were having a rough time, and that bitch you were dating didn't help."  
  
"God. She was like my Justin." Frankie hung her head.  
  
"We sure picked some winners."  
  
"We sure did."  
  
Sören stopped walking and gave her a hug, instantly almost regretting it as he felt her body against his, and wondered again what would have happened if they'd sorted their feelings out when they were living together in London. If they would have been lovers. The thought of taking her, giving her pleasure, making her feel  _loved_...  
  
He tousled her hair - he'd never found her unattractive with the pink mohawk, but the pixie cut in her natural red color was adorable, he loved it - and their eyes met.  _She has such pretty eyes._  He liked the way she looked in glasses, too.  
  
_I'd like to see her in nothing but her glasses. OK,_  down,  _boy._  
  
Sören's heart started to race. He opened his mouth, wanting to tell her  _I think I'd like you to be my girlfriend._  His mouth was dry, and no sound came out. For a moment it was like he lost the ability to make words. His stomach was doing flip-flops.  
  
"You all right?" She raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Er." Sören ran a nervous hand through his curls.  
  
His phone went off. It was Gitta. He took it. "Hi! Is everything all right?"  
  
Gitta chuckled. "Yes, everything is fine." A soft sigh. "Considering." She went on. "I want to make a cake for later and didn't know if you had any preferences -"  
  
"Oh god. Uhhh, chocolate anything." Then Sören blurted out, on impulse, "Gitta... you and Jane need a night off. I want to take you guys to dinner."  
  
"Oh, Sören, you don't have to..."  
  
"No, I insist." He took a minute to think. "The Adamson. I really want to say thank you."  
  
"I also insist," Frankie said, nodding. Sören handed her the phone and Frankie said, louder, "I also insist. Actually me and Margrét and Kol were talking last night about wanting to take you guys out while we're up here, so tomorrow night's as good a time as any. Here, let me put you back on the phone with him -" Frankie handed the phone back over.  
  
"So, there you have it. Don't try to argue with us," Sören said, and then he couldn't help adding, "Resistance is futile."  
  
Gitta laughed. "When you put it like that..."  
  
"I'd like Harrison to come along," Sören said. "He's a good kid." Sören couldn't believe he'd just called Harrison a kid, and Harrison wasn't hugely younger than he was - twenty-seven? Sören thought about how he'd be turning thirty-five in November... and it didn't really matter anymore. He'd only been immortal for a short period of time and he already felt ancient.  
  
"That's very kind of you."  
  
"Where is he, so I can ask him?"  
  
The déjà vu didn't translate all the way between worlds, and upon trying to get to the practice rooms where Gitta said he'd be, Sören took a wrong turn and ended back up on South Street. That was just as well, because there he was.  
  
"This daft cunt got us lost," Frankie informed Harrison.  
  
"Not lost. We took a wrong turn, that's all."  _Daft cunt?_  he spoke into her mind.  
  
Frankie glanced at him.  _You're my daft cunt._  
  
  
_  
  
  
The next day, Sören was woken up to the sound of Maglor's phone going off. It wasn't early in the morning, but any morning was not Sören's favorite time of day, and they had been trying to sleep in after another night of late lovemaking. Maglor swore in Elvish, and mumbled into the phone, "Hello." Then his eyes widened and he sat up. "Oh." Sören could hear an Icelandic accent on the other end of the line. "Oh. OK. Thank you for letting me know. So eight weeks? That's..." Maglor frowned, trying to do the math.  
  
Dooku used the Force to retrieve his own phone, pulled up the calendar, and shot ahead to November, the week of the tenth through sixteenth.  
  
"OK, sometime after November 10th I'll be by, I can tell you the exact date when it gets closer. And thank you again, so much, I can't wait to see him! Or her."  
  
When Maglor hit End, he explained, "Puppies."  
  
"Oh my god WE'RE GETTING A DOGGIE HE'S GONNA BE SO CUTE I'M GONNA DIE," Sören yelled, fully alert at the adorable mental image of Maglor with a little puppy.  
  
"Or she," Dooku said.  
  
"Yeah, depends on what there is. But I get first pick of the litter." Maglor smiled.  
  
"Auli's a dad." Sören sniffed, wiping away a pretend tear. "I remember when  _Auli_  was a puppy."  
  
"Awwww. I miss him." Maglor's smile became a frown.  
  
"I know." Dooku patted him. "But soon you'll have a small Auli of your own."  
  
"Well... whatever a sheepdog-Corgi hybrid looks like," Maglor said.  
  
"Fucking adorable, probably," Sören said.  
  
Ari himself looked like an adorable puppydog as Sören found him working in the garden with Gitta, smiling  _way_ too much for someone who was doing yard chores.  
  
"Are you stoned?" Sören asked him.  
  
"Do you think I could have gotten weed past Customs?" Ari gave him a look.  
  
"I don't know, could you?"  
  
Ari gave him a mocking little smile. "Right, you're the guy who couldn't figure out you were fucking an Elf for five years."  
  
Sören used the Force to hit Ari with a nearby towel. Gitta snorted, and louder when Ari glared at her. Then Ari was grinning again, genuinely, and this time Gitta picked up the towel and whacked him with it. "You need to get changed and get ready," Gitta said.  
  
"Oh, for what?" Sören asked, nosy. "What's going on?"  
  
"Harrison is taking me around town, showing me some things."  
  
Sören caught the little twinkle in his eye, something he recognized from the time he'd had crushes on people. He'd noticed Harrison and Ari getting chummy last night. "I see," Sören said, nodding. He couldn't resist the jab, speaking into his mind,  _Showing you some things?_  Sören waggled his eyebrows.  
  
_Jæja, fuck you._  
  
Dooku was badly containing his own amusement.  
  
"It's not a date," Ari huffed.  
  
"I said that about Sören, too," Dooku said, putting an arm around Sören's waist and leaning in for a kiss.  
  
Ari shot them a look and got up.  
  
"It's not a date," Sören snarked, imitating Ari's voice. "Right, Ari."  
  
  
_  
  
  
This time it was Maglor's turn to go sightseeing with Sören, as Dooku was having another golf day with Jane. Maglor felt nostalgic for the early days of his relationship with Sören, when Sören showed him all the little wonders of Reykjavik, and other places in Iceland. He'd enjoyed traveling with Sören across Europe - he loved spoiling him - and Sören's exuberance at everything in St. Andrews was a balm for his soul, making him feel a little less pessimistic about a future of having to go from place to place, worrying that it would make Sören hate him. Sören was in adventure mode.  
  
Sören sometimes had too much of a sense of adventure, dragging him into a chip shop.  
  
"Two deep-fried Mars bars," he said when it was their turn.  
  
"Two?" Maglor raised an eyebrow.  
  
"You heard me, right?"  
  
"You..."  
  
"And two Irn Brus."  
  
Maglor screamed internally.  
  
Maglor insisted on taking it outside - even though none of these people knew him, and obviously people who had come to a chip shop to  _eat and drink that_  weren't going to judge him, but he judged himself, questioning his entire life as he looked at the cup, the bright orange glaring through the paper.  
  
"Are you going to try it?"  
  
"I... can't believe this."  
  
He did, and then  _Sören took pictures_. Including a few of them both, with Sören grinning into the camera as Maglor's expression was less amused. Less so when he could feel Sören making bunny ears over his head.  
  
When the deep-fried Mars bars were finished, Sören gave him a kiss, and even though it tasted like Irn Bru and a heart attack, Maglor would never take kisses from Sören for granted again, after their years apart -  _a lifetime_... even when Sören was at his brattiest.  
  
Being here in St. Andrews, as beautiful as it was, it was also making him think too much, wonder too much about the dozens if not hundreds if not thousands if not millions of possible universes, what was different, what was the same. In two other worlds he knew for a fact he had Claire as some sort of companion, thanks to what Vanimórë had told him, and now here in St. Andrews he'd seen glimpses into a world where he, Sören, and Claire were together. He wondered if Dooku was there too. Dooku had become just as precious to him as Sören was, now. Dooku and Sören were so very different, and they balanced each other out - they gave Maglor each something he badly needed. He imagined Claire, in other worlds, provided an additional set of balances.  
  
_We all need each other, and it is part of the Doom that we are not all together._  
  
Sören saw the trouble on his face, and hugged him. "I love you, you know."  
  
"I know." Maglor held him tight. "I love you, too." He nuzzled Sören's curls. "You are my light."  
  
Sören kissed him hard, hard enough that Maglor had to fight the urge to drag him off somewhere and fuck him senseless.  
  
"You were a good sport about the chip shop," Sören said. "I had to try it. You know what else I want to try? Haggis."  
  
"Oh  _god._ "  
  
Sören giggled. "Your face."  
  
" _Hells_ , Sören."  
  
"Listen, I'm Icelandic. I've eaten worse.  _You've_  eaten worse."  
  
"Please don't remind me of that first Þorrablót you dragged me to in Reykjavik."  
  
"If you can survive Þorramatur you can survive haggis. Or even deep-fried haggis."  
  
"That... why. Why does deep-fried haggis exist."  
  
Sören shrugged. "At least deep-fried  _hákarl_  doesn't exist. ...Yet."  
  
Maglor made a noise.  
  
"See? The deep-fried Mars bar wasn't that bad, by comparison." Sören got up and pulled Maglor up to his feet. "Here, let's think about something more pleasant." Sören was dragging him again.  
  
They were in a jeweller's now. Sören was looking intently at the display cases. When the jeweller approached, Sören said, "I want something that matches this." He held up his left hand, with the white gold wedding ring. He gestured for Maglor to come over, to have his ring sized.  
  
"So we're doing this," Maglor said, heart soaring. He knew that Sören wouldn't do something like this if he didn't intend for it to be permanent, he took his word seriously.

 _Forever._  
  
Sören nodded. He lowered his voice, even though the jeweller had gone into a back room. "I know we're not Wiccan, or not anything, really, but I want Gitta and Jane to perform the ceremony."  
  
"OK." Maglor swallowed hard.  He thought of the cottage back in Akureyri, one of the arguments with Vanimórë.  _I cannot live with hope. Dost thou understand? Wilt thou just_ stop _?_

Sören looked at him, a long, meaningful look.  Maglor saw the world in those warm brown eyes.

 _My light. My hope._  
  
They walked out once the band was acquired, which rested in a box until the appointed time. Maglor squeezed Sören's hand, and they stole a kiss before they marched onward.  
  
Ari was helping with dinner prep again, and then Gitta made him take another break, with Ari sitting across from Sören and Maglor, who were cuddling with the cats, all of them watching  _Star Trek: The Next Generation_.  
  
"How was your day?" Sören asked once the episode was over.  
  
"Good." Ari smiled. "Very good."  
  
"Jæja, I see you and Harrison have hit it off."  
  
There was amusement in Sören's eyes at Ari's fluster, and Maglor was himself amused, watching the gentle banter, but there was also that sharp ache there, the ache that never quite went away with time, missing his brothers, the way they laughed and teased.  
  
Ari's almost guilty reaction snapped Maglor back to attention. "I like him," Ari said, not denying it.  
  
"I bet." Sören smirked. "I could feel your mind in the gutter for the last twenty minutes."  
  
"Could you not?"  
  
"No." Sören slapped Ari on the shoulder. "You should go for it."  
  
"I'm not... hooking up with him... on this trip."  
  
_Oh no, Ari, no._  "Hells," Maglor hissed under his breath, in the same instant that Sören said, "Hi not hooking up with -"  
  
Ari's eyes narrowed. "SÖREN, I SWEAR TO GOD."  
  
When they calmed down, Sören asked more seriously, "And why not? I mean, not knowing someone well hasn't stopped you before...?"  
  
"This is different," Ari said.  
  
"OK." Sören knew better than to try to argue with his cousin about it. "Well, at least don't make the same mistake I did with her cousin, and not say anything -"  
  
Ari shrugged. "I'm playing it by ear and  _Sören don't you fucking dare, I will roundhouse you_."  
  
Sören's laughter rang out. "One of the nice things about being immortal, people can't kill me for my dad jokes."  
  
"Or for insisting I try a deep fried chocolate bar." Maglor glared.  
  
Ari's eyes widened, and he laughed. "Really?"  
  
"I got pictures," Sören said.  
  
Maglor's glare intensified. " _Do not_  -"  
  
It was too late. Sören had his phone out; Ari  _howled_.  
  
"The look... on your face..." Ari wheezed.  
  
"They're not bad," Sören said. "Kind of good and kind of gross at the same time. Not something to eat every day. You should definitely try one, it's  _an experience_." He patted Ari's shoulder. "Maybe take Harrison to go get one."  
  
"You're pushing the matchmaking thing way too hard," Ari said.  
  
"I wouldn't if you weren't into him, but you so clearly are." Sören folded his arms, using the Force to tuck his phone back into his pocket. "He's cute, I guess. Kind of young for me."  
  
"Anything short of geriatric seems to be too young for you." Ari gave Maglor a sheepish look. "Sorry, but."  
  
"I'm not offended." Maglor smiled.  
  
Sören tilted his head. "Hi not offended -"  
  
Maglor facepalmed; he'd walked right into that. " _Hells,_  Sören."  
  
"I had said more than once I like older men," Sören said. "I guess I like them  _a lot_  older."  
  
"I guess so," Ari said.  
  
Sören snickered. " _My anaconda don't want none unless you've got grandsons._ "  
  
Ari cringed. "Thanks, I hate it."

 _You are ridiculous, you know that_ , Maglor spoke into Sören's mind.

_No shit._

Maglor gave an affectionately exasperated smile, tousling his curls. _I wouldn't have you any other way._  
  
  
_  
  
  
On Friday, Ari and Harrison went out again, and Jane needed a day to rest, so Dooku convinced Maglor to play golf with him. Sören thought about tagging along with his sister or brother on one of their excursions, but he also felt like sketching. He decided to take a walk around the grounds of the manse, carrying his satchel with a sketchpad and some art supplies, then he saw Eden sitting in the gazebo.  
  
"Hi," Sören said brightly. "Mind if I join you?"  
  
"Not at all."  
  
Sören sat down. "It's lovely out here," he said, looking around.  
  
"It's very peaceful. This is exactly the kind of vacation I needed from London."  
  
"Actually..." Sören opened his satchel. "This would be the perfect setting to draw you in, if you don't mind. You want to sit out in the yard?"  
  
They did. Eden sat for Sören to sketch, and after a few minutes Sören realized the peaceful greenery was not quite the perfect setting for Eden. He needed something wilder.  _He_  was wilder. But Sören could at least sketch Eden, and the background details would come later.  
  
"Eden..." Sören knew he was potentially setting off a powder keg, but it was just them out there. Their eyes met. "Your real name isn't Eden Dale, is it?"  
  
A moment of hesitancy, then, "It's close enough."  
  
"What is it really." Sören raised an eyebrow. "I already know  _what_  you are, but I don't know who, and I keep getting the sense that I really need to know  _who_. Like it wasn't a coincidence our paths crossed. Because it wasn't, was it. You knew we'd be coming here."  
  
"It's not a coincidence, no."  
  
"So... why. What's going on?"  
  
Eden took a deep breath. "My real name is Edenel. Before that, it was Élernil."  
  
"...you are Quendi."  
  
"I am not just Quendi, Sören. I am Unbegotten. The twin of Finwë. I woke beside him in Cuiviénen. I am your uncle, Fëanor. I should have been your father."  
  
The pencil fell on the ground.  
  
Edenel picked it up and handed it to him. A shiver went down Sören's spine as their fingers touched.  
  
_I would have loved you, I would have cherished you, and it grieves me to know Finwë had not._  
  
"What..." Sören rubbed his curls. "I don't remember you, and I saw everything." Including, especially, Finwë's displeasure in his existence. Crying at night,  _raging_ , wishing he had a different father. "What happened?"  
  
"It's why my hair is white, instead of dark like yours is now... and was back then. I can tell you - or show you, my mind to your mind - if you really want to know, but it's not pleasant."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "You're my blood. I want to know."  
  
Edenel took his hand. "Close your eyes."


	48. Shadows and Fire

**Shadows and Fire**

 

When it was all over Sören was shaking, crying, gasping for breath.  
  
Edenel was shaking, too. His expression was icy, but behind the mask Sören could feel the pain.  
  
Even now, as Sören looked at Edenel, the sunny blue sky, the green grass, the trees, the pond in the distance with ducks and geese honking away, he couldn't unsee it in his mind's eye.  _Fell-wolves, Orcs, Melkor. Torture, rape. Eating flesh raw and bloody. Across a wasteland, desolation, then land growing wild again and the summons of Melkor, white fire lashed back at him._  
  
I will not, will not, will not.  
  
_Blood Oath. Hunting Orcs. Blood fever, blood rage. Knives. Death, Orc hearts. White fire, fed. Burning. Burning blood._  
  
Sören's eyes met Edenel's, so light they were almost white. They were beautiful eyes.  _The eyes of a killer._  
  
Who had endured things no one ever should. Sören found himself leaning against Edenel now, arms around him tight. Rocking both of them. It was just as much for him as it was for Edenel - he needed some kind of comfort, after what he'd just seen, what he'd  _felt_  - but his heart went out to his kin, who had been  _changed_  by the brutality he'd suffered. And was in awe of how he'd survived, his strength, his  _power_...  
  
Edenel did not push him away. His arms were around Sören now, too. Sören's nose was in the mane of white hair, and he was petting it, stroking it.  _Still so beautiful._  
  
Then Sören's forehead was against his. They were both breathing harder, shaken by the intensity of the visions, the intensity of the emotion that came with those visions, the _griefragemadness_. Sören  _ached_  for him, all he'd been through...  
  
... _especially the loss of your own family._  
  
Sören remembered his life as Fëanor, again, the rejection of his father and his stepmother, crying at night, wishing he had  _a real family_. He had the secret friendship of Fingolfin, who hated what was happening to him and showed him little kindnesses - later, passion. Things had only gotten worse with Finwë when Finwë learned he desired men, and Sören had seen, now, that Finwë and Élernil had been lovers, before the time of separation, and Finwë living by the Laws of the Valar in Valinor, rejecting his old life in a way that bitterly reminded Sören of "ex-gay" converts in this day and age. Fëanor had felt so alone, so much of the time, and to know now there had been  _someone_  who would have been the father figure he needed...  
  
Sören remembered Edenel's words, before the visions started.  _I should have been your father. I would have loved you, I would have cherished you, and it grieves me to know Finwë had not._  
  
They looked into each other's eyes again, and the feel of Edenel's body against his, the warmth and comfort bringing yet more  _longing_... Sören shivered. He barely knew Edenel, yet he  _knew_  him. Blood sang to blood, fire called to fire.  
  
The fire of passion, the sin that was in their blood even before Fëanor and Fingolfin and Maglor. Élernil and Finwë had been made for each other, and it had been glorious. Sören could feel it now, electricity crackling between he and Edenel, going from breathing hard to barely breathing, like he was trapped in a wall of fire.  
  
Sören's trembling hand brushed hair out of Edenel's eyes.  
  
"Fëanor." Edenel's voice was husky.  
  
Sören was hard. They both were. The thought of riding Edenel here in the grass, Edenel pushing him onto his back and taking him hard... Sören  _wanted_. Every nerve in his body was screaming for it, a primal hunger so savage it was terrifying and exhilarating all at once. They had been ripped apart from each other and now they were here and they had both been through too much and Sören wanted to give him a moment in time of pure ecstasy, the light of joy, the fire of creation after so much destruction.  
  
Sören's lips parted, moving closer. Then his phone went off.  
  
" _Fjandinn blóðug helvíti._ "  
  
It turned out to be a wrong number. Sören wanted to scream. Edenel had already gotten up. Before he could walk off, Sören called out, "Edenel. Uncle."  _Adar._  "Wait."  
  
Edenel paused.  
  
"Have dinner with the family tomorrow. I insist. You won't be intruding."  
  
Edenel took a deep breath. "All right."  
  
Sören hugged him again, and his cock throbbed even more, but Edenel walked off, and Sören kicked a rock in frustration.  
  
He went back to his room to sketch. He thought about the incongruity of who and what Edenel was, and the peaceful setting of the yard on the manse, and the rather benign look on his face as he'd been posing for the sketch. He could turn Edenel into a fearsome warrior, and that would be true to what he was, but...  
  
Sören thought about when he asked Edenel to pose for him, remembering what Vanimórë had told him about trusting his sight. That he'd thought the landscape of pines had been perfect, before he'd decided they weren't. The landscape of a world changing to fall, the promise that winter is coming.  
  
The white hair, near-white eyes... Sören had wanted to do something wintry. The white fire felt almost like ice.  
  
He remembered Frankie hinting that Edenel and Kol were lovers. Kol of the red hair, bronze eyes, like fire made flesh. How hot his skin felt when Sören had randomly encountered him in Reykjavik  _with Vanimórë._  Sören swallowed hard at the memory, missing Vanimórë again, making himself shove it away.  
  
He'd drawn and painted Kol once before. He thought of Kol at the Botanical Gardens in Akureyri, the way he'd smiled at a flower opening. It was a beautiful moment, enough that it had burned itself on Sören's mind so that he could still see it clearly. He sketched Kol now, beside Edenel, the eternal summer to Edenel's winter.  
  
He was adding some embellishments to each of them - a crown of holly for Edenel, a crown of oak leaves for Kol.  
  
Sören's heart was racing now. It looked good, but that didn't mean Edenel or Kol would think it was good. And always, Justin's words.  _That's so stupid. Why do you even bother?_  
  
Sören's eyes burned with tears. Edenel's vow against Melkor, the surge of white flame. The one time Sören had tried to fight back against Justin... how many times he'd wanted to use the Force, but would have ended up killing him.  _I will not, will not, will not._  
  
A chilling thought.  _Justin served Sauron._  He remembered Justin telling him about nightmares he had about a burning eye. That seemed ridiculous, but he had started to learn very few coincidences in his life actually were.  
  
Remembering Justin raping him. And the vision of Edenel, repeatedly raped, brutalized,  _violated_.  
  
_My blood. Why do we all know so much tragedy and pain._  It hurt, so much.  
  
Sören looked down at the sketch.  _At least Edenel came away from everything strong. Magnificent. I'm just damaged goods. And this sketch isn't worthy enough of him. He's too beautiful and I can't get it right._  Sören swallowed hard and tore the paper off the pad, crumpled it on the floor, and curled up in the fetal position on the bed, sobbing. Tormented by the vision of Edenel's past, Fëanor's memory of  _longing for home_ , the loneliness and separation of ages...  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören was still curled up in the fetal position, crying, when Maglor and Dooku found him.  
  
Sören showed them across their bond, not able to make words. It brought tears to their eyes, too, but did not break them the way Sören was falling apart, now, almost screaming as he relived the visions again, raging for his kin, the desperate urge to comfort, to  _protect_ , even though Sören knew Edenel was a much more capable fighter than he.  
  
Maglor and Dooku held him until it was time for dinner. Sören attempted to pull himself together, though he knew from the look Gitta gave him that he wasn't fooling anyone.  
  
It cast enough of a shadow that there was an awkward silence at the dinner table until Ari said, "Can Harrison come to dinner tomorrow?"  
  
Gitta and Jane exchanged amused glances, and then Gitta nodded. "Of course. He's family, and all."  
  
Sören thought about making a smart remark, needing levity, and the look Ari gave him made him hold back... for now. Sören took the opportunity to say, instead, "Can Eden also come to dinner tomorrow, as my guest?"  
  
"I don't see why not."  
  
Sören, Maglor, and Dooku took a walk together after dinner. They sat at the Harbour together, watching the sea. Sören snuggled against both of them.  
  
"There's something else that happened," Sören said, finally, wanting to be honest about it.  
  
Dooku raised an eyebrow and waited for Sören to go on.  
  
"I held him after and." Sören swallowed hard. "We both got aroused. We didn't go there, but that was because my phone went off. But I wanted to touch base with you about it - I know you guys have had a talk about being OK with me having another partner, but I don't know if that just means one, or if I can have a few lovers on the side, or..."  
  
Dooku and Maglor looked at each other, and then Dooku said, "I think we can give you carte blanche since you can't get diseases now... not that you could get them from Elves anyway... and we know where we stand with you."  
  
Sören nodded. "You guys are my, ah..."  
  
"Primary partners?" At Sören's raised eyebrows, Dooku said, "I had a talk with your sister about polyamory and she gave me some useful terminology."  
  
"I see." The idea of Margrét educating Dooku about that was amusing to Sören, and he could hear Maglor breathe a little sigh of relief to see him smile. "Yes, primary partners, that sounds like a good word for it."  
  
"And we trust your judgment not to bring chaos into our home," Dooku said.  
  
Sören nodded. "If there's someone I'm seeing who you do have a problem with, let me know, because your feelings matter to me."  
  
"We'll keep that in mind." Dooku nodded.  
  
"I have to say, though..." Sören gave a little smirk. "Edenel was checking you out at the wedding."  
  
Dooku blushed.  
  
"That could be hot," Sören said, nudging him.  
  
"I don't know him," Dooku said. "I'm not like you. It takes time for me to be comfortable with someone. I couldn't even touch Vanimórë beyond incidentally and he wasn't exactly a stranger..."  
  
"It's OK." Sören nodded. "I'm just saying, if you ever..."  
  
Dooku's blush deepened, and he patted Sören's hand. "We never know what the future holds, but for now I'm content with what I have."  
  
_It would still be fucking hot,_  Sören spoke into his mind, shivering at the mental image of the three of them. Then that vision he'd had - still not sure if he'd seen the future or just wishful thinking - a six-man orgy, with Kol, now identifying the white-haired one as Edenel, and Vanimórë...  
  
_Vanimórë._  Sören started to cry again.  
  
Maglor's eyes widened with alarm, arms tightening around him. "Sören, what is it?"  
  
It was such a sudden change in mood, and Sören cried harder, self-conscious. Justin's words came,  _You're such a fucking crybaby._  "Van. I miss Van..." Sören closed his eyes. "Lost Van, lost Claire, keep  _losing people_... lost Edenel when I was Fëanor, didn't even know he existed but my soul could feel it..."  
  
"Oh, love." Dooku's arms were tight around him too. "Sweetheart."  
  
They took Sören back to the manse, back to their suite. He'd tried not to cry too hard in public on the way back but once in their room he let go, weeping again, feeling like he was being ripped apart. They held him through the night, both of them crying with him, for him, for each other, themselves, endless grief across eons, brought back together again broken.  
  
But laying there in the darkness, entangled, their broken places fit together, three parts of a whole, still shining.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören felt hungover on Saturday from all the crying. He was woken up to the sound of paper, and watched Maglor uncrumpling the ball on the floor. Then Maglor sat next to him on the bed, giving him a filthy, murderous look.  
  
"Sören Sigurdsson," he said, pointing to the wrinkled paper. "You will never do this to your art again."  
  
Sören sighed.  
  
"Why did you do that?" Maglor was stern.  
  
"Because it sucks."  
  
" _What?_ " Maglor shook his head emphatically. "Sören... that's your asshole ex talking. This... it's just a sketch and I'm already floored by the way it comes to life..."  
  
"You're my partner, you're biased -"  
  
"No. Have you ever known me to hold back on my opinion if I don't like something? I like your sister  _a lot_  - not in that way, thank you - and you know I haven't minced words about what I think of her band, or when she was still screaming instead of singing, anyway. I'd be honest with you, though gentle, constructive, if I thought this was flawed in some way. But  _Hells_ , Sören, you have a gift."  
  
"If you say so."  
  
"Nicolae, help me out here."  
  
Dooku was dressed already, and folded his arms. "He's right."  
  
Sören rubbed his face. "Fuck."  
  
Dooku stroked his beard. "I'll see if Gitta and Jane have an iron so we can smooth that out..."  
  
Sören would have started crying again, but he was all cried out.  
  
Dooku came back with an iron, and Sören watched as he placed a towel on top of the sketch and began to iron it. Eventually, there were very few wrinkles left on the paper, and Dooku put it on the dresser next to Sören's backpack.  
  
The three spent the afternoon sightseeing around St. Andrews - Sören wanted to go back to Jannettas for ice cream. Maglor had a lemon sorbet and Dooku had salted caramel, and Sören decided to horrify both of them by trying the Irn Bru ice cream, even though he'd made a face at Frankie trying it the other day.  
  
"If I never see Irn Bru again," Maglor said, "it will be too soon."  
  
They got joint tickets to visit the Cathedral and the Castle. "Oh good, it has a dungeon," Dooku joked at the Castle, and swatted Sören's bottom when nobody was looking. "Perfect for naughty little brats."  
  
"Promises, promises," Sören said, turning the other cheek for a swat there, too. The thought of being tied up and spanked again made him horny - the delicious thought of being disciplined by all of his lovers, taking turns spanking him, fucking him - almost set him off right there.  
  
Sören loved the Hamish McHamish statue, taking a few pictures there. It also made him miss Snúdur, who had been in his thoughts off and on over the trip, and after visiting the bronze cat statue he called María to check on his cat - even though the cat was immortal now too Sören wanted to hear about him - and he even had María hold the phone over Snúdur so the cat could hear the sound of his voice, smiling as Snúdur chirped and purred into the phone. He was even more delighted when María sent him a text with a picture of Snúdur curled up. Sören came close to texting her back a picture of the Hamish McHamish statue, then he remembered Charlie's caution about pictures of himself, and all of the photos of the statue had some combination of him, Maglor, and Dooku in the photo.  
  
_Fuck. I'm never going to be able to do normal people shit again, am I.  
  
...Well, nothing ever was normal, I guess._  
  
The tour of St. Andrews was still enough of a distraction that Sören was in better spirits compared to yesterday, which was good since Harrison and Edenel were both guests at dinner. Jane had decided to serve a more traditional Scottish meal this time, and as part of the Scottishness, Irn Bru was offered to those who wanted it as they waited to be served. Sören cackled at the face Maglor made.  
  
Ari and Harrison weren't bothering to make a secret of their mutual attraction, sitting close to each other.  
  
"You guys are going to give me diabetes faster than this Irn Bru," Sören said.  
  
"Sören, you can't even get diabetes now." And then as soon as it was out of his mouth, Ari winced. Harrison gave him a confused look and Ari coughed loudly. "Good genes, and all." He grinned.  
  
Sören kicked him under the table, hard.  _Nice one, mate._  
  
"So speaking of Irn Bru..." Sören looked at Maglor, and then at Harrison. "If I pay you, can you send some to Iceland for me?"  
  
"Hells, Sören," Maglor muttered.  
  
"I could," Harrison said, nodding.  
  
"Or I could," Ari said.  
  
Sören's eyebrows went up.  
  
"You know how I said I needed to go elsewhere for awhile?" Ari said. "Been thinking that after I tie up some loose ends back in Reykjavik, I'll come here. Gitta and Jane can use some help around the place, and it's so peaceful here, I'm the most relaxed I've been in years. And I already have a... friend." Ari looked like he didn't quite know how to classify what was happening with Harrison.  
  
"You're a dear," Gitta said, squeezing him. "We really appreciate your offer to help."  
  
"I really appreciate that you'd let me stay here. Such good energy here."  
  
"Well, either of you can be my Irn Bru dealer," Sören said.  
  
Dinner was served - haggis with "neeps and tatties". "Oh, excellent," Sören said when the haggis was brought out. "I've been wanting to try haggis..."  
  
As the haggis was served, Jane said, "I hope you enjoy it. We went to a lot of trouble to have that haggis hunted..."  
  
Sören raised an eyebrow, knowing haggis wasn't an animal.  
  
Completely deadpan, Jane raised her glass of Auchentoshan and said, "Aye, the wild haggis is a wily one. A wee beastie, shaped like a hairy sausage..."  
  
Sören spat his Irn Bru, and Harrison was also doubled over, shaking, tearing up. Their eyes met, and they laughed even harder as Ari rolled his eyes, groaning loudly, and Maglor said " _Hells_ " and took a nip of whisky.  
  
Then in Sören's mind's eye, he saw it. Sitting at a dinner table with Claire, Maglor, and a younger Harrison. Harrison's first trip to Scotland, Claire and Sören insisting on giving him a  _"right proper"_  Scottish dinner while he was visiting. Claire taking the piss, trying to convince Harrison haggis was an animal, calling it  _"a wee beastie shaped like a hairy sausage"_  and Sören and Harrison erupting in spasms of howling laughter, with Claire glaring. _"Help me out, Mark."_  Maglor poker-faced, saying  _"I do not wish to get involved."_  (With a British accent, one he didn't have here.) But he was indeed wishing to get involved, later looking longingly at Sören and Claire as they stole a kiss...  
  
Sören's eyes met Harrison's again, who was also no longer laughing. There was a frisson, and Sören realized that Harrison had been shielding a lot around them - something non Force sensitives didn't usually do, they were usually loud mentally - and now his shield was dropped, startled, because  _he's seen it too._  Their eyes held, and then Harrison looked down.  
  
Sören felt self-conscious, wondering  _what exactly_  was going on with Harrison, and why he'd been able to see that too. And then before things could get too serious, Harrison mouthed "hairy sausage" and he and Sören lost it all over again.  
  
Halfway through the meal Dooku spoke up to give his compliments, and then he said, "I also have an announcement to make."  
  
When he had everyone's attention, he said, "As most of you know, my one-year wedding anniversary with Sören is tomorrow, the twenty-second. Over the summer, when we took Alejandro as our third, we asked him if he'd be willing to marry us. It's not legal, but we can still have a spiritual ceremony. We'd like Gitta and Jane to perform a handfasting tomorrow, and we'd like to invite the newest members of our extended family to attend." He looked at Harrison, then at Edenel.  
  
"Wow." Harrison cleared his throat, and squared his shoulders. He gave a little nod. "I'd... I'd be honored. Thank you."  
  
"I'm also honored, and I accept," Edenel said.  
  
"Hi also honored, and -" Sören muttered into his drink, cut off by Dooku and Maglor both kicking him under the table.  
  
Edenel gave him a predatory look, and Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip. There was heat in those silver-white eyes, and Sören felt himself  _wanting_  again.  
  
Sören shoveled food in his mouth, trying to distract himself.  _Not tomorrow night, but soon, perhaps._  
  
  
_  
  
  
Jane somehow managed to convince Sören, Maglor, and Dooku to wear dress kilts for the occasion. Sören didn't like doing the suit-and-tie thing unless he had to, and suit-with-a-kilt wasn't much better, even though he was wearing his  _traditionally_  and the air up his kilt felt good.  
  
They were all dressed in black, since none of them were Scottish, but Jane had a Clan MacGregor pin for each of them, with a piece of the clan plaid. "Since you're my family, that makes you MacGregor by adoption," she said, kissing their cheeks as she pinned them. Dooku hugged her warmly.  
  
"You're like the sister I never had," Dooku said, holding her for a moment.  
  
Their eyes were sad as they pulled apart. "Aye, you've become like a brother in just these few days." Jane patted him. "I'm glad I got to meet you."  
  
Sören wanted to scream.  _Drink the fucking blood, Jane. Don't leave us._  Now was not the time or the place for that, but he didn't want to lose her and Gitta, too. It tore at him.  
  
It tore at him again when he saw Gitta, robed in black... carrying a replica Klingon bat'leth. "What in the hell." Sören busted out laughing, even though he was also sad, already missing them.  
  
"It's not a traditional athame," Gitta said.  
  
"I don't... know..."  
  
"Right, I forget sometimes you're not of the Craft. Athame is a special knife or small sword in my religion," Gitta said. "I use this." She grinned and twirled the bat'leth around.  
  
Jane was robed in white, the first time Sören had seen her wearing something other than purple. In the twilight, making a line to the gazebo, each of the attendants held a candle, and the gazebo itself was lit up with a ring of candles, a pentagram drawn in salt on the gazebo floor.  
  
"We have come on this night to unite these three men in sacred marriage," Jane said. "Let any who have an objection speak now or forever hold their peace."  
  
No one objected. Gitta pushed Sören, Maglor, and Dooku forward into the gazebo, and then she walked around the parameter of the gazebo with her bat'leth, drawing a circle in the air, calling to the directions. Sören saw the air shimmer faintly, and then Gitta "cut a door" for her and Jane to walk through.  
  
"We call upon the Oak King and the Holly King, enemies and lovers, to witness this rite and bless their love," Gitta said.  
  
Sören's eyebrows shot up, thinking of the sketch. The power he felt from Edenel, almost blinding. The radiant fever of Kol.  _They can't... they can't be gods, or avatars of gods, can they?_  A shiver went down Sören's spine. His eyes wandered and met Edenel's, and then they wandered back.  
  
"We give you the blessing of Earth," Jane said, sprinkling soil around them, "for stability, prosperity, and strength."  
  
"We give you the blessing of Air," Gitta said, carrying a censer of incense around them, "for communication, insight, and wisdom."  
  
"We give you the blessing of Fire," Jane said, walking around them with a candle, "for passion, and ever-burning love."  
  
"We give you the blessing of Water," Gitta said, sprinkling water around them, "for the ability to go with the flow, change when changes are needed, and always return to each other, like tides to the sea."  
  
"We give you the blessing of Spirit," Jane said, and the crowd gasped as burning herbs in a tiny cauldron became rainbow fire, which Jane smiled at. "Your union serves a higher purpose, never lose sight of it."  
  
Sören, Maglor, and Dooku held out their hands, and Gitta and Jane wrapped a cord around them, binding them together. They had given them brief instructions earlier that day, and Sören remembered the words to speak. "I am theirs, and they are mine."  
  
Gitta cut their fingers with a dagger, and let the blood drip into the cauldron with the rainbow fire. "I pronounce them wed. So mote it be."  
  
Sören's face lit up and he hugged his husbands, and kissed both of them in turn, hardening a little when they kissed each other.  
  
Gitta and Jane had made a cake - a chocolate cake rather than a traditional wedding cake, but no one objected. There was also fresh Scottish tablet. Sören put a piece of tablet in Maglor's mouth and then Dooku's, and just before he could eat one himself, Jane brushed by, and Sören asked, "The cauldron..."  
  
"Oh, that's a bit of chemistry," Jane said. "Your brother gave me the formula." She waved over at Dagnýr, who grinned and waved back.  
  
"Oh." Sören felt stupid - even though he'd been to med school - had excelled in the sciences, chemistry, biology, how he even got into med school in the first place - knew how to perform surgery, knew calculus, he still felt dumb compared to his brother a lot of the time. "I... like... chemistry."  _I like chemistry. Really._  
  
Maglor picked up on Sören's self-deprecation across their bond, giving him a look before he came closer and said, "We have plenty of that," and put a piece of tablet in Sören's mouth, kissing him with it. Sören groaned into the kiss, mind taken off the feeling of inadequacy, the urge for Maglor to take him right there on the table.  
  
They didn't stay at the afterparty long, hurrying off to their suite. They started undressing as soon as they got in - not before Sören lifted up his kilt and flashed his husbands - and once they were naked, they climbed on the bed together.  
  
The three just held each other for a moment, cozy and peaceful. "I love you guys," Sören husked, breaking the silence.  
  
They took turns kissing - Sören and Dooku, Sören and Maglor, Dooku and Maglor. Hands roaming over each other.   
  
Dooku and Maglor continued to take turns kissing Sören, kissing each other, before kissing and licking Sören's neck together, then down to his nipples, licking and suckling them at the same time, making Sören arch and cry out. They spent a long time teasing Sören's nipples, playing with the piercings, Sören almost sobbing in his need. Then they worked their way over the rest of his body, stomach, hips, thighs. Dooku sucked his cock while Maglor's tongue played inside him, readying him. Sören pet both of them, moaning, lost in sensation. Before he could come, they stopped, and then Dooku decided it was Maglor's turn, pushing him back against the pillows.  
  
Sören and Dooku took their sweet time kissing, licking, caressing Maglor all over, neck, chest - feasting on his nipples - stomach, hips, thighs, Sören sucking him as Dooku ate him. Maglor's moans were even louder than Sören's, an impressive feat, and he was dripping precum before Sören grabbed Dooku and growled, "Your turn."  
  
Dooku got teased worst of all, licked and licked and licked everywhere. Sören and Maglor licked his cock and balls together, reveling in the deep groans, breaking the iron composure and the dignity, making him pant for it, moaning louder and louder. Maglor sucked him slowly as Sören licked inside him slowly, and then Maglor's tongue was inside him as Sören sucked him, until Sören decided to just lick his cock, hand caressing the hairy chest, loving the way he trembled.  
  
While Dooku was on his back, and had been subject to so much teasing, they started with him, Sören riding his cock, Maglor inside him. They came hard together, enough that they needed to rest awhile, tangled up together, but the feel of each other's bodies got them going again, the gentle petting giving way to caressing, rubbing. They settled into laying on their sides, Maglor inside Sören while Dooku was inside Maglor, holding each other, leaning on each other, slow and sensual, tender and sweet until passion gave way and Maglor rolled Sören onto his back, driving into him with abandon as Dooku took him from behind, nibbling on his neck and shoulder.  
  
Open from that, slick with lube and Maglor's cum, Sören needed more. He climbed on top of Maglor, back to Maglor's chest, and sank down on his cock before laying against him. After a few thrusts Dooku pushed into Sören as well, laying on top of him. Sören loved Maglor's arms around him from behind, holding him, as he looked into Dooku's eyes, felt their bodies together, the rough silver hair teasing his sensitive smooth skin. Maglor tilted his face so they could kiss, and Dooku leaned over Sören's shoulder to kiss Maglor, and Sören and Dooku kissed deeply, Sören's arms tight around him. He loved feeling two cocks inside him, the delicious push and pull, and knowing they were making love to each other, cock on cock, as well as to him. It was incredibly intimate, and vulnerable, and what the three of them needed.  
  
_Nothing will ever tear us apart again._  
  
Another shattering climax - the three coming together, taking each other's hands - and they still hungered. Maglor continued to lay against the pillows and Sören sank into him, before Dooku took Sören, teeth on the back of Sören's neck like a wild animal mounting in rut. It was hard and wild and fast and frenzied, bed rocking against the wall, the slap of their flesh as loud as their cries of pleasure. Then after orgasm and resting they went again in the same position, slower this time, Maglor's labradorite eyes gazing into Sören's with love and trust that took his breath away.  
  
"Fëanor." Maglor stroked Sören's cheek. "Fingolfin." He took Dooku's hand.  
  
Sören kissed his forehead. "I'm here." His lips slid down Maglor's nose, to claim his mouth. "We're both right here."  
  
Sören kissed his tears, and then Dooku was inside Maglor too, and the look of ecstasy on his face as he was filled by both of them brought tears to Sören's own eyes. "Nothing is ever ended, Macalaurë," Sören said, petting him. "Love will always find a way."  
  
It didn't take long before Sören couldn't make words at all, with the feeling of Dooku's cock rubbing against his in the tight, slick velvet heat of Maglor, throbbing around both of them. And then he found his words again as they climaxed together again, Maglor raining over him, beautiful in the throes of passion.  
  
"I love, love, love, love you," Sören called out. "I love you, my Star, my Song, both of you, my soul."  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören needed to sleep in, up late last night.  
  
According to the note that greeted him when he woke, Dooku had gone out to golf with Jane, and Maglor had taken a trip to the beach. That was OK - Sören got changed, grabbed the sketchbook and the sketch of Edenel and Kol that Maglor and Dooku had salvage, put it in his satchel, and decided he'd go for a little walk. He didn't know where he was going, as yet, but he'd figure it out.  
  
He saw Edenel as he was leaving, who was a few meters ahead. "Eden!" he called out, aware they were in public, wanting to be cautious about names. Edenel paused. Sören caught up with him.  
  
A scent hit his nostrils, intensely arousing; Sören started to harden. "Holy shit," he said, and then, "Er, sorry, language." He looked at Edenel. "What's that cologne you're wearing?"  
  
Edenel didn't answer that. "I have to get going -"  
  
"Awww, really? Can you stay for just a minute? Here, I want to give you something. It's probably not very good, but I don't know, like a welcome to the family present..." Sören opened his satchel and took out the sketch of Edenel and Kol.  
  
Edenel stared at it for a moment, open-mouthed.  
  
"Where are you going, anyway? Whatcha doing?"  
  
"Taking a drive to the stones in Dunino -"  
  
"Oh right, it's the equinox, isn't it?" Sören felt like he was being annoying for asking, but he needed to be around Edenel right now. "Can I come with you?"  
  
"It's... kind of a private thing I have to do..."  
  
"Oh." Sören made a moue. "I was hoping to spend more time with you. Um, I hope the sketch isn't stupid."  
  
"It's beautiful, Sören." Their eyes met. "You're... beautiful. Your soul shines through your work."  
  
"You're pretty shiny, too." Sören bit his lower lip and crinkled his nose.  
  
Edenel grabbed Sören's face and kissed him, hard. He started marching Sören back towards the manse, the two of them kissing feverishly. The scent from Edenel was almost overpowering but not at all unpleasant, Sören wanted to drown in it. He was fully, achingly erect, tenting his jeans, and he smiled between kisses at the bulge in Edenel's own trousers, reaching down to rub it, which made Edenel groan into the kiss before biting Sören's lower lip hard enough to draw blood. Sucking on it, tasting it, which just inflamed them further.  
  
Edenel was carrying the sketch the entire time and he put it down gingerly when they entered his room on the other far wing of the manse. Fire in his white eyes, he slammed the door behind them. Sören started undressing. Even though Sören's body was well-used last night and he was a little sore, he was  _hungry_.  
  
And he was still open, from all the fucking. Sören moaned as Edenel kissed his way down, before taking Sören's cock in his mouth like he was starving for it.  
  
"God, you gorgeous fuck..." Sören shivered.  
  
It didn't take long for Edenel to make him come the first time, Sören spilling in his mouth with a broken cry. Edenel swallowed it down and lapped him clean, and then nuzzled Sören's bush, breathing in his scent, his musk - combined with the musk of his husbands, since Sören hadn't showered yet from last night.  
  
That gave Sören a deliciously lewd idea. "I still have your other nephew's cum... and your grand-nephew's... inside me, if you want to taste."  
  
He did. Edenel  _devoured_  him, bringing Sören to climax again just from his tongue - Sören gave him a little warning just before he went off, and his orgasm intensified from watching Edenel drink like he was at a fountain, getting some cum on his face and neck and in his hair in addition to his waiting, lapping tongue.  
  
He came up to kiss Sören then, and Sören licked his face and neck like a puppy, giggling, the mischief in his eyes and the laughter and smiling seeming to drive Edenel wilder, grinding against his thigh, urgently hard.  
  
"We need to take care of you," Sören husked, fingers straying to brush one of Edenel's nipples, pinching, rubbing. "And I want you inside me."  
  
Edenel kissed him hard, harder when Sören arched to him, parting his thighs.  
  
"Come home to me, Uncle," Sören whispered.  
  
What followed was one of the longest sex sessions of Sören's life. Edenel plowed him for hours, the two climaxing over and over again, breaking Maglor's record of giving Sören eight orgasms the night they got back together; Sören lost count at nine and it wasn't the last one. Sören was taken on his back, then desperate for more, Sören got on all fours, face down, ass up like an animal in heat, Edenel's teeth in his neck, grabbing his curls. Then he rode Edenel, bucking wildly. Then Sören rode him with his back against Edenel's chest, Edenel's arms around him, one hand stroking his cock, the other playing over his body, tilting his face so they could kiss. Sören wished he had the leash.  
  
The wildest of all was Edenel on his knees, Sören's legs propped on his shoulders. Edenel had completely shed his glamour, hair flooding to his knees, glowing brilliantly, and Sören was in awe, almost  _worshiping_  him, lost completely in lust, adoration.  
  
As well-used as Sören was from last night, pleasure bordering on pain, it was exquisite. The feeling of all-consuming  _fire_ , desperate need, kept them going, wanting, not able to get enough of each other. It was a heady mix of the joy of reunion, the sorrow of being apart, the rage at what they had each gone through, and then, at the end, the words of truth. "Never again. Never lose you again... have you now..."  
  
_I should have been your father._  Sören's deepest wound, starting with the rejection of Finwë, continuing in this life with his blood father dead by thirty, when Sören was too young to remember him, and Einar raising him with contempt and cruelty. " _Ada._ " Sören's voice broke, reaching out to touch Edenel, hold him. Hold on for dear life. " _Ada. Ada..._ "  
  
That was their last climax, both of them screaming, sobbing as they came together. Seeing Edenel break, weeping, made Sören weep the harder, clinging to him tighter. They rocked each other, tears flowing, deep, deep catharsis.  
  
And at last there was silence, save their heartbeats. Edenel gently, tenderly stroked Sören's curls - as tender as he'd been rough, earlier - and planted a soft kiss on Sören's brow. "Thank you."  
  
"Thank  _you._ " Sören laughed now, not sure what he was laughing at, the catharsis giving way to euphoria. "Holy fuck, that was amazing."  
  
"You were magnificent." Edenel smiled.  
  
Sören kissed him deeply, a kiss that would have roused him back to hardness if he wasn't so utterly spent. "I'd love to do that again sometime."  
  
"So would I."  
  
"You should come to Iceland. Well.. duh, I mean you already come to Iceland to see Kol, I guess, but... you should come to Akureyri, see me. Get to know your nephew. Nephews." Sören thought of Dooku.  _God, a threesome would be fucking hot. Or a foursome with Maglor._  He was definitely drained, because that thought would normally be enough to get him close to climax untouched. "Nicolae - Fingolfin - he's a bit reserved, but. He can thaw."  _Boy, can he thaw._  Sören had taken great pleasure in taking his virginity - top and bottom - teaching Dooku passion and ecstasy, the fire he knew was down beneath the ice. It had been explosive, delicious, and had become even moreso with time and practice.  
  
Edenel stroked Sören's cheek. "I'd like to visit you, yes." He looked at the time. "You should rest before dinner."  
  
"Awww, do I have to take a nap, Ada?" The words came out before Sören could stop himself.  
  
Edenel looked at him like he was looking at dinner itself. "Yes." Another kiss on his brow, nuzzling him. "Sleep,  _onya._ "  
  
Sören fell right asleep. He had very vivid and strange dreams, moreso than usual.   
  
_Vanimórë showing him the Portal, taking him to Avebury, where he'd had a brief vision of the Oak King and Holly King dancing at the menhir. He was there again, and it was the summer solstice instead of the fall equinox. The sudden impulse to go to Avebury, not realizing it was the solstice. Running into misfortune, helped by a kind stranger - Eden Dale. Telling him about Justin. Compassion, warmth. Waking at dawn, watching Eden dance at the menhir, dressed as the Holly King, and there was that same delicious, gorgeous scent. Hot, passionate sex for hours, and Eden made him forget - because Eden had called him Fëanor, spoke in Elvish. Then Claire, hair platinum instead of rose gold, in a car accident, unhurt but badly shaken. Eden distancing himself as Claire and Sören instantly bond... Sören and Claire making love that night, glad-to-be-alive sex, shattering both of them. Sören and Claire see each other, move in together, let Frankie move in with them. After tipsy flirting, Frankie's head between Claire's legs, and Sören having both of them. Then, the return of "Alejandro"... who had taken up with Dooku in the time they'd been apart. Tears. Revelation. Forgiveness. Passion. Joy._ All of you are mine. _Eden showing up again, with the promise of eternity. Sören and Edenel and Claire writhing together._  
  
Sören felt like he was hungover when Edenel woke him up for dinner. "Mmmmf," Sören moaned into the pillow.  
  
Edenel helped him get dressed; Sören moved around gingerly, sore and exhausted.  
  
"Are you all right?" Edenel asked. "I know I was a bit... aggressive..."  
  
"Oh, I fucking loved it," Sören said honestly. "It's just... the nap." He frowned. "Those were some wild dreams."  
  
"Oh? Sometimes people have strange dreams in a new place -"  
  
"This..." Sören shook his head. "This isn't any old place, I've been seeing a lot of weird shit since I came here. But this is like..." He sat down on the bed, wincing. "I'm going to assume you know about the multiverse stuff, because of Van, and -"  
  
"In short, yes." Edenel nodded.  
  
"I've been seeing into another universe while I'm here. And then, while I was asleep just now... it was  _yet another fucking universe._  And  _you_  were there, this time. Doing what we did this afternoon, but on the summer solstice in..." Sören squinted. "2016. Things went differently, there. And you did some sort of magic on me or something because I'd remember you speaking Elvish, but I  _did_  remember, finally. When you came back, and had a gift for us."  
  
Edenel looked away.  
  
Sören's voice shook. "I asked Van, before he left, to help. To find us, wherever we are, and... keep us together. Me, Maglor, Nico... Claire." His voice broke with her name. "If what I'm seeing is true, he's... he's doing that. He's kept his promise."  
  
Edenel took Sören's hand and kissed it. It looked like there were tears in Edenel's eyes again, and Sören could feel, when he'd broken and wept after that last orgasm, that Edenel  _did not_  cry as a rule.  
  
"If you see him again before the Dagor Dagorath... tell him I said thank you." Sören took both of Edenel's hands.  
  
A moment of silence passed, and Edenel said, "I better take you out to your family."  
  
"They're your family, too." Sören put an arm around his waist. "Come on, eat the family." Then Sören snickered and facepalmed at his slip of the tongue. "Eat with the family. God."  
  
Edenel shook with silent laughter. "You're incorrigible, you know that, right?"  
  
"That's one of the few things in the multiverse I'm absolutely sure of." Sören gave him a squeeze.  
  
  
_  
  
Sören needed most of Monday to recover, which was just as well because it rained. On Tuesday it had stopped raining, though it was grey and cool.  
  
Maglor still wanted to go to the sea, which was fine with Sören, and when they came back, Dooku and Jane were playing chess. Gitta stepped out from the kitchen, wanting Sören and Maglor to taste-test a sauce she was making, and then Ari told Gitta, "Sit down and take a break."  
  
"I normally say that to you."  
  
Gitta sat next to Jane and put an arm around her, and they pressed their foreheads together for a moment. Sören couldn't resist taking a picture of them, and got choked up as he did.  
  
Dooku noticed the hitch in Sören's breath, and Sören leaned on him. Then Gitta and Jane gave him a concerned look.  
  
"I'm fine," Sören said.  
  
"You're not fine." Jane pursed her lips.  
  
"No, but you wanted us to be happy while we were here -"  
  
"So, out with it."  
  
Sören took a deep breath. "Can I be completely honest?"  
  
"Aye." Jane nodded. "Please do."  
  
"All right." Sören took a few more deep breaths. "I know that you wanted us to come here so we could all have some happy memories of you guys before... before." He couldn't say it. "But. I feel like I've been cheated out of the family I could have had. That we, my brother and sister and cousin and I, could have had. It shouldn't have taken us all until 2019, and you having cancer, for us to reconnect like this. I've already lost someone I loved, recently, and being here is reminding me of losing Claire, too. And it's not the first time I've lost people. And I know that being immortal now, as time goes on, I'm going to lose more people I care about, that's just a fact. But you guys are family." His voice broke on that last word. "Gitta, you look so much like my mom and remind me of her, and it's gonna be like losing her all over again when it's your time. And Jane... you're a great lady. You guys aren't just my aunts, you're like my moms. I." He was sobbing now. "I don't want to lose you. I've been through a lot, I'm still traumatized  _as fuck_  from things that have happened to me, like this abusive shitbag I was with, maybe I'm being selfish, if you've made your peace with death, but there's this lost, scared, hurt little boy who needs his mamma. Please."  
  
Gitta and Jane were both tearing up, and Dooku and Maglor were too. Ari was watching from the kitchen door, not bothering to hide his tears.  
  
Dooku cleared his throat. He took Jane's hand. "I told you the other day that you've become like a sister to me. And..." He looked down, then up, meeting her eyes. "As you know, I'm also immortal now, and... it's going to be even more difficult for me, as the years go on and the world changes so radically - it's already so different from when you and I were young - and I have to move from place to place, change identities... change  _birthdates_ , pretending to be of a generation I'm not. In twenty years I shall have to pretend to be a  _millennial._ " He gave a mock shudder and made a face, and Sören couldn't help laughing, elbowing him. Then Dooku was serious again. "It would be helpful if I didn't have to go through this alone. And I know I'm being selfish, too, perhaps, by asking, because it won't be an easy life. But having someone else my age who understands the unique challenges of being this age and being immortal... it might be a little  _easier_. It would be less scary, in any case, and... as much as I do want to spend eternity with the men I love, it doesn't change the fact that it's terrifying just the same."  
  
Gitta and Jane looked at each other, and there was a long moment of silence.  
  
Jane looked back at them, and sighed. "All right. Which of you lot has the blood?"  
  
Maglor found Kol outside, and came back in with a vial. Jane broke out the Auchentoshan, pouring a shot for everyone, and Maglor passed her the vial. Jane added drops of blood to her drink and Gitta's.  
  
"Bottoms up," Gitta said.  
  
  
_  
  
Instead of Harrison's usual Tuesday night dinner with Jane and Gitta, he was going out to dinner with Ari, which amused everyone, and would be having the usual family dinner on Thursday instead, their last night in St. Andrews.  
  
Sören found himself missing Harrison, even though he didn't really know him - he got the distinct impression that in the universe where he and Claire and Maglor lived in St. Andrews, he and Harrison were close friends, he was something of a mentor to the younger man.  _"Pretending to be a responsible adult,"_  he could hear Claire, teasing him.  
  
Jane and Gitta were quiet through dinner, no doubt processing what they had done that afternoon by taking the blood. After dinner, Sören and Dooku found Jane and Gitta sitting in the gazebo, looking up at the stars, cuddling. Sören and Dooku hugged both of them tightly before sitting across from them.  
  
"How are you feeling?" Sören asked.  
  
"Ugh." Jane made a face.  
  
"We were kind of both ill after taking the blood. I should have warned you about that, sorry."  
  
"Well, being ill, after years of cancer... that's not so bad." Jane folded her arms. "It's what comes after that concerns me."  
  
Sören and Dooku looked at each other.  
  
"We have a contact that Van put us in touch with," Dooku said, "who works for MI6. That was concerning to us too," he said, noticing the frowns, "but she's on our side, because it's in the best interest of society for at least one government agency to be on our side, so there isn't panic and chaos and revolution caused by immortals, psychics, and the like. Anyway, we can give her your contact information, but judging from what you said at the wedding Van already explained a lot of this to you - moving around, changing names..."  
  
"We're going to have to do that sooner rather than later," Gitta said, looking at Jane, who nodded. "Her cancer was considered terminal and it's on record. Having a miraculous recovery is going to... raise interest that we don't want or need. So we're looking at having to go boldly where no one has gone before -" Her voice imitated Patrick Stewart's. "In a matter of months, not years."  
  
"Shit, yeah." Sören sighed. "Fuck, I'm sorry."  
  
"That means we have to figure out what to do with this place," Jane said.  
  
"Well..." Gitta looked at her again, then at Sören. "Ari seems really, really attached to this place. He's been so helpful, he seems to genuinely thrive on the chores of keeping this place running. If he wants to take it over..."  
  
"It's not a consolation for having to walk away from that entirely but I'd have to do that anyway if I was dead, and at least I know it would be in good hands," Jane said, nodding.  
  
"So we'll have a talk with Ari. The transfer can't be immediate, I know he said he has to take care of some stuff back in Reykjavik -"  
  
"He'll want to bring his cat to Scotland, too," Sören said. "Oh, just fyi, Charlie said she'll arrange for all pets to move." He made fingerguns.  
  
"Oh thank gods." Gitta breathed a small sigh of relief. Then she said, "Um..."  
  
Sören knew exactly what she was thinking. "We gave some blood to my cat, too. So..."  
  
Jane broke down crying. "We won't lose the cats."  
  
"They're like our children." Gitta's own eyes were too bright.  
  
Sören cried too, missing his cat again, glad he'd see him soon, glad his cat would be with him forever.  _We'll need to make Maglor's dog immortal too..._  "But yeah, Ari will probably say yes..."  
  
"We'll have to show him how to  _run_  the place, because that's a bit different than working in the kitchen, the garden, feeding the chickens, though we do that too. That's going to take time. So our departure probably won't be until sometime in the new year, after we're confident he can handle everything." Jane nodded.  
  
"Do you guys have an idea where you want to go...?"  
  
Gitta and Jane looked at each other. "Not yet, but we'll figure it out," Gitta said.  
  
"We'll have to find a way to keep in touch and visit each other when we can," Sören said.  
  
"We will. Eventually, when you start moving around, maybe we can all live together."  
  
"So long as we get someplace with thick walls." Jane made a face. "Even with the thickness of the walls here, I've been hearing you lot." She glared at Sören. "Especially you and Eden the other day..."  
  
"Whoopsie." Sören blushed.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Jane and Gitta were both exhausted on Wednesday - they'd had a rough night from the blood catalyzing, though not as bad as what Sören had experienced. Ari didn't mind picking up the slack, and Sören visited him in the kitchen.  
  
"Did they tell you..."  
  
"Tell me what? They told me a few things," Ari said. "Like not to hurt Harrison or they'll kill me -"  
  
Sören snorted. "Well, I guess we better make you immortal."  
  
"I... I'm still thinking about it. It's a lot, especially considering, you know, Harrison doesn't know about the immortality thing yet."  
  
Sören noticed Ari's wording was very specific,  _"Harrison doesn't know about the immortality thing"_  as opposed to  _"Harrison doesn't know about our stuff"_ , and Sören had started to figure out that Ari had a way of saying things without saying them. "Does he... does he know..."  
  
"That we're Force sensitive? He knows I am, because he, ah. Might have slipped and used the Force himself last night."  
  
"Shit,  _really?_ " Sören's eyebrows went up.  
  
"Really." Ari nodded solemnly. He smiled. "It was cute, actually."  
  
"I bet. You guys still haven't..."  
  
"No, we still haven't. I've thought about it, but." Ari leaned back against the kitchen counter. "Probably when I come back from Reykjavik, just because there's too much happening."  
  
"That was the thing I was gonna ask you about - did they tell you about how they want you to..."  
  
"Take over the place? I told them yes." Ari nodded. "This is... so perfect it barely feels real. I didn't know what the hell I was going to do with myself when I left Iceland, I just knew I needed to  _go_ , and then staying here... this place is good for me. It's a nice, simple, quiet life. It's the kind of change I need." He sighed. "It also means a lot. I'm not Gitta's nephew, but she still treats me like I'm blood."  
  
"Your parents were vile shitbags, you deserve family too." Sören hugged him. "Though I'm gonna miss being able to take a short flight to see you."  
  
"I'll still visit Iceland, or wherever you guys end up, later, and you guys of course should come visit Scotland."  
  
_Wherever you guys end up, later._  Sören swallowed hard, not wanting to think about that, when he'd have to leave Iceland for good.  
  
_At least I'll get some more years there. That's brutal, Jane and Gitta having to clear out of here on such short notice._  
  
  
_  
  
On the night of Thursday the twenty-sixth, Jane and Gitta made a sheet of haggis pizza, which Maglor and Dooku were completely aghast by, but there was also a pot of curry for those who were less adventurous.   
  
Sören enjoyed the haggis pizza. He enjoyed it even more when he said, "You know what would be interesting? Deep-fried haggis pizza," and watched Maglor's face.  
  
"For someone who was in med school, you have some horribly unhealthy ideas of food," Maglor said.  
  
"Listen, I don't eat like that all the time. I eat other things." Sören gave him a pointed look.  
  
Harrison snorted, and that set Sören off into a gigglefit while Maglor, Dooku, and Ari affectionately rolled their eyes.  
  
After dinner, Sören went out into the yard to get some air, and Harrison stepped out, too.  
  
"Hi," Sören said.  
  
"Hi."  
  
"So, uh." Sören cleared his throat. "We're going back home tomorrow."  
  
"I know." Harrison nodded.  
  
Sören turned to face him. "Can we be friends?"  
  
Harrison smiled. "I'd like that."  
  
"Good. I need someone who understands what it's like to have a filthy gutter mind."  
  
Harrison laughed out loud at that. "Maybe if you visit Scotland again I can show you around other places. We can all go haggis hunting." He snickered. "The hairy sausage."  
  
Sören snorted, and so did he. Then Sören put his hands on his hips. "Yeah, about that."  
  
"About... that." Harrison sighed.

"You saw... someplace else."

"Yes." Harrison raised an eyebrow.  
  
"OK, let me start off by saying that I know you know about Ari, and." Sören used the Force to pull his cell phone out of his pocket. "Contact info?"  
  
Harrison let out a low whistle, and then he gave it to him, and watched as Sören used the Force to slide the cell phone back into his pocket when it was all recorded. "So, he's not alone in the family in being able to do that.  You can tell him about weird shit, and you can tell me, too."  
  
"I mean, I should have figured, considering Gitta and Jane -"  
  
"So you know they can too."  
  
Harrison nodded. "We..." He took a deep breath. "We've known about each other for years." He looked down. "They were the first other people I knew who could do all that, except for Claire."  
  
"Claire." Sören's hair stood on end. "Claire... was."  
  
" _Yeah._ " Harrison closed his eyes. "I think it's part of why she." He shuddered. "She felt too much, had a hard time turning it off..."  
  
"Fuck." Sören pinched the bridge of his nose. "Jesus." _Bad choice of words together._ "No, I mean, don't fuck Jesus -"

They laughed and cried; Sören hugged him tight. When they calmed down and pulled apart, Sören patted Harrison's shoulder. "I loved her," Sören said.  
  
"I... I know." Harrison nodded.  
  
"I hope wherever she is, she knows." Sören closed his eyes and took a deep breath.  He opened his eyes.  
  
"I wanted to give you something," Harrison said.  
  
"Oh?"  
  
Harrison used the Force to pull a small glass bottle out of his pocket. He put it in his hand and handed it to Sören. "Here."  
  
Sören looked at it, and squinted. There were ashes in it.  
  
"I was given some of Claire's remains and... I've given some of them to you."  
  
Sören hugged him again, sobbing. " _Takk._  You don't know how much that means -"  
  
"I think I know." Harrison patted him.  
  
  
_  
  
  
Sören had the ashes in his checked luggage on the way back to Iceland - praying that his luggage wouldn't get lost, he would have had it in his carry-on if they weren't so anal about containers - and he almost cried with relief when his luggage rolled out on the conveyor belt.  
  
Back at the house in Akureyri, the first thing Sören did was let out Snúdur from his cat carrier. The second was zipping open the checked luggage and taking out the small bottle of ashes, which had been wrapped carefully. He walked to the fireplace mantle, where there was a jar of dirt from the farm that had been in his family until the 1980s - Tindómion's farm - dirt where Tindómion's ashes had been scattered, long ago. Next to the memorial jar for Tindómion, Sören placed the bottle of Claire's ashes. He kissed the fingertips of his index and middle fingers and pressed them to Claire's jar, then Tindómion's.  
  
_Someday... All will be mine._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A hat tip to Narya for the "wee beastie shaped like a hairy sausage".
> 
> Some of the events of the dream Sören had that starts with Avebury at the summer solstice take place in Spiced_Wine's one-shot [_Solstice Fire_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18828808) (which leaves off after Sören and Claire meet, I expanded on the events thereafter).
> 
> The universe that Sören keeps seeing into where he, Claire, and Maglor are together in St. Andrews is [the _Homeward Bound_ 'verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1375528), in progress.
> 
> Edenel's story is told in Spiced_Wine's [_A Shadow Over Genesis_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17922155/chapters/42317492).


	49. The New Normal

**The New Normal**

 

Though the trip to Scotland had been largely pleasant, and there was much rejoicing that Gitta and Jane had chosen immortality and they (and their cats!) would be around for eons to come, and Sören had found some much-needed closure in the beginning of his friendship with Claire's cousin Harrison, the weeks that followed sent Sören into a deeper melancholy than the one he'd been in prior to the trip. He continued to teach at Logifugl Listaskóli, but he had not worked on art of his own since the sketch of Edenel and Kol that he'd crumpled, that Maglor and Dooku had rescued. He still made love with his husbands, he still made jokes, but he was otherwise quieter, not himself.  
  
It concerned Dooku, and he and Maglor talked about it when Sören wasn't around, trying to find little ways to cheer him up. But nothing seemed to be working.  
  
In the middle of October they went on a day trip to Reykjavik to see Margrét, Frankie, and Kol's new house, two bedrooms - one was a guest room. Even that did not help, and Dooku was dismayed that Sören  _still_  did not tell Frankie how he felt. He tried to impress it upon Sören once they were back home.  
  
"You are immortal now, but  _she_  is not. Not yet. You will regret it if you don't tell her and something happens -"  
  
Dooku instantly regretted saying that because it set Sören off crying. He heard the one word in Sören's mind -  _Claire_  - before Sören ran off to the studio room and curled up on the nest, sobbing. Eventually Maglor went to him and got him calm. Eventually Sören accepted an embrace from Dooku, the words of "I didn't mean to hit a nerve. I just want you to be happy."   
  
But Sören was still in pain. And Dooku hurt for him.  
  
At the end of October, Ari left Iceland to go to Scotland. He and his cat came up to Akureyri the night before Ari would fly back down to Reykjavik and then to Edinburgh - "to take the train instead of trying to drive in that mess" - and Dooku made dinner and Sören and Ari played video games after dinner. Ari slept in the guest room but he and Sören were up most of the night talking and reminiscing. It was the most animated that Dooku had seen Sören in a month, and it gave him some hope that Sören was finally starting to come around.  
  
But after Ari left, as October became November, Sören crashed harder. He took three days off from classes, hiding in bed. Dooku and Maglor allowed him space for three days to grieve, understanding he needed to let his feelings out and cry, but on the evening of the third day they sat on the bed.  
  
"I know depression isn't something you just snap out of," Maglor said. "I know you miss your cousin. I know you still miss Van."  
  
Sören sobbed into the pillow.  
  
"But you can't stay in bed the rest of your life. You need to go back to your students tomorrow -"  
  
"I feel like I lost my vision," Sören whispered.  
  
There was a long silence. Dooku took Sören's hand and stroked it. They'd of course known that he hadn't been making art on his own since the return from Scotland, but it was the first that Sören had actually admitted, out loud, that he'd run into some kind of creative block - the same creative block Dooku remembered Sören mentioning he'd had over 2014-2015 after Maglor left. Which had returned with the encounter with Vanimórë in Reykjavik, and going to London. Had returned with a vengeance after he'd left Justin and fought to take his life back. Now of course, Sören had lost Vanimórë, his cousin was in a different country - no doubt reminding Sören of when his twin brother went off to Oxford - and Sören was struggling with wondering how much more loss he would endure over his lifetime.  
  
Maglor broke the silence. "You haven't lost your vision, anymore than I lost the Song. I thought I did, for a long time. But it was always there. And I  _know_  your vision is still there inside you, Fëanor. Even in your darkness, your sadness, you still  _shine_."  
  
Sören wept again, and Dooku and Maglor pulled him close, held him tight, rocked him together. As they held Sören, they pressed their own foreheads together, nuzzled, both choked up at the sight and  _feeling_  of their husband so forlorn, ready to give anything to comfort him, to bring back the free spirit they'd fallen in love with.  
  
"It's going to be all right." Dooku stroked Sören's curls, planted a kiss on his brow. "It will be all right. You have us. We will never leave you."  
  
A sob.  
  
Sören looked up, and the sad brown puppydog eyes were like a knife to Dooku's heart. "I'm afraid that eventually you  _will_  leave. That you'll get sick of me..."  
  
"No, sweetheart." Dooku crushed Sören against him, and could not hold back his own tears now. "We've been together close to two years now, and I love you even more now than I did then. I  _want_  to spend the ages with you."  
  
"So do I." Maglor held both of them, and rubbed his nose in Sören's curls. "It's been ten years since I first met you - in this life, anyway - and my god, Sören. My love for you has only grown with time. I could no more think about leaving you than I could part with one of my limbs."  
  
"I'm sorry I'm like this." Sören shook with the strength of his sobs, crying brokenly. "Sometimes I feel like a part of me is still living with Katrín and Einar, or Justin, I've internalized so much of their garbage, even though it's been years later and I'm in a better place now, that traumatized part of me thinks it's only a matter of time before you agree with them that I'm worthless -"  
  
"I could  _never_  agree with them." Maglor's voice was almost a growl. "They're filth, for what they said and did to you."  
  
Dooku nodded. "I would argue that they are the worthless ones, love. Not you." Dooku's eyes met Maglor's. "I rather regret that I was not invited to the murder of Justin."  
  
Then he saw it when he closed his eyes. A world where he and Maglor were together first, saw Justin attacking Sören in a parking lot, defended him, brought him home, took care of him. After weeks of living with them, learning to trust again, Sören finally telling them about the abuse he'd lived with, the night of rape. Then Dooku and Maglor took Justin down together, wearing masks to not be recognized as they made their way into the building, using gloves to leave no fingerprints. Sören saw the news, knew it was them, so soon after the timing of telling them about the rape...  _"You're safe now."_  Holding him, making love to him together...  _"You're safe now. You're ours now."_  Sören on the leash, loving it.  _"Our pet. Our good boy."_  
  
Dooku let out a little sigh.  _Well, at least there's that._  
  
"You belong to us now," Dooku said, cupping Sören's chin with his hand, thumb gently rubbing the beard. "And we belong to you."  
  
Then, Dooku used the Force to open the bedtable drawer, pulled out the leash and the collar. It had been awhile - Dooku and Maglor had been mindful of Sören using it in sessions with Vanimórë, and had not wanted to rip open that wound. But it was time.  
  
Sören's eyes widened at the sight of it. Wordlessly, Dooku got off the bed and began undressing. When his shirt was off, and he noticed the hungry look Sören gave him, he gave Sören an expectant look in return, as if to say  _Well?_  
  
Sören gave a little smile -  _finally_  - and pulled off his T-shirt, throwing it at Dooku.  
  
When they were all naked, Maglor and Dooku held Sören between them for a moment, continuing to pet him. At last Dooku put the collar on Sören's neck, and clipped the leash through. He and Maglor both held onto the leash, and took turns kissing him.  
  
"Our good boy." Dooku echoed the words he'd spoken in the vision. "Let us love you, sweetheart."  
  
Maglor glanced at him. "I think he needs a lot of love. More tender loving care than usual." He looked back at Sören, a thumb idly brushing Sören's nipple, rubbing in slow, lazy circles, and Dooku's cock throbbed at the groan it produced, the heat in Sören's eyes.  
  
"Hmmm, yes." Dooku nodded. "But he might try to coax us into giving him a release more quickly, so we should ensure that he has to receive our care for some time." With that, Dooku used the Force to open the bedtable drawer again, and out came the pair of black silk scarves that he'd tied Sören up with before. He looked at Sören to make sure it was OK.  
  
Sören crinkled his nose and bit his lower lip, which made Dooku's cock throb again, aching to take him, but it would be all the sweeter for waiting. "Mmmmm." Sören smiled, and grabbed the headboard, giving access to his wrists.  
  
Maglor tied one, and Dooku the other. "You let us know if it's too much and we need to stop, OK?" Dooku stroked Sören's face, and Sören nodded, before kissing Dooku's fingertips - an innocent gesture that again, made his cock twinge, wanting him.  
  
With that, Maglor and Dooku spent close to two hours just teasing Sören, worshiping his body with their hands and mouths. Kissing his neck, nipples, stomach, hips, thighs, calves, and back up. Fingers playing over him, brushing, stroking, rubbing, kneading. They feasted on his cock together, licking it together, then Dooku sucking it while Maglor licked and sucked Sören's balls, slipped his tongue inside Sören and tongue-fucked him slowly, and then it was Maglor's turn to suck Sören's cock as Dooku ate him, stroking himself a little as his tongue worked inside him, aroused by the act and Sören's delicious moans, the look on his beautiful face as he lost himself in passion.  
  
Maglor and Dooku continued to hold the leash together, even as Sören's wrists were tied. Every now and again one of them would pull the leash just a little, a reminder that he was theirs, and Sören would moan, or gasp "Yes..."  
  
At the two-hour mark, Dooku was so pent up he felt like he was going to explode. Sören's cock was slick with precum, and his insides were open and slick just from their tongues, though Maglor poured lube inside him anyway, opening Sören with his fingers - one, two, three - as he leaned over Sören and kissed him again and again. Dooku kissed Sören's neck down to his nipple, lapping, suckling, giving the ring a little tug with his teeth before lapping it some more, then pinching and plucking and rolling the nipple as he licked and nibbled Sören's neck.  
  
"Please," Sören begged. "Please, take me..."  
  
Dooku and Maglor looked at each other, and nodded. They untied his wrists, keeping him on the leash. Maglor lay on his back, and pulled Sören on top of him, his back to Maglor's chest. He wrapped his arms around Sören and groaned as Sören sank down on his cock, crying out when Maglor bottomed out in him. Dooku's cock twinged again, gushing precum as he watched Sören filled, and he stroked lube over his own cock as he watched Sören ride, Maglor's cock slowly pumping in and out of him. Dooku climbed over Sören and guided the tip of his cock to Sören's opening, claimed his mouth as he began to push inside.  
  
The two took turns kissing him as their cocks rubbed together inside him, as Sören wrapped around them deliciously, as they savored the silken heat of him, every whimper, every cry, every shiver. Their fingers continued to play over his body, they continued to play with the leash, whispering loving assurances. "We're right here. You have us. You belong to us." Every now and again Maglor and Dooku stole a kiss over Sören's shoulder, Maglor's fingers would brush over Dooku's chest or hip, or Dooku would stroke Maglor's face or play with a strand of his hair.  
  
It was slow and sweet and loving, sensual and decadent. They kept on that edge as long as they could, losing themselves in sensation, that feeling of connectedness, the heady mix of love and lust between them, wanting to give each other ecstasy. All sense of time and place slipped away, nothing else mattering but their bodies, their hearts, melting with new depths and heights of pleasure.  
  
And then it happened. Dooku tugged the leash a little harder, nibbled on Sören's throat near the collar. Maglor's arms tightened around Sören, fingers straying to a nipple. Sören's eyes met Dooku's, and Sören called out, " _Pabbi._ "  
  
In his mind's eye, Dooku saw Sören's encounter with Edenel in Scotland. He knew that Edenel was their uncle, when he and Sören were Fingolfin and Fëanor; Sören told him that Edenel was supposed to be their father. He could feel Edenel touching Sören's deepest wounds, the abandonment, the need for a father, crying out " _Ada_ " over and over again as they fucked.  
  
When they had been Fëanor and Fingolfin, even though Fingolfin had been the younger of the two, there was a solemnity and sense of dutifulness to him from a young age, and he'd found himself being "the responsible adult" with Fëanor, taking care of him, making sure he ate, rested, pulling him out of the forge when he overworked... soothing him when upset. He'd looked remarkably like Finwë, and one night Fëanor called him " _Ada_ " when they were making love. Fëanor confessed later that Fingolfin was more of a father figure to him than Finwë had ever been, and much of the time thereafter they roleplayed, which was nourishing to Fingolfin as well, finally able to do something for Fëanor's hurts, which had grieved him as they grew up together, angry that their father had seen Fëanor as the unfavorite.  
  
" _Pabbi_... Daddy..." Sören shuddered. "Harder, Daddy, please..."  
  
Dooku didn't know what it was, but something about Sören calling him that drove him mad with lust, and he started to thrust inside him harder, faster. Maglor matched his rhythm, and Sören panted "Yes, Daddy, yes, Pabbi, more..."  
  
Dooku groaned into Sören's shoulder, and nipped it before kissing him hard. When the kiss broke, Sören gasped "Daddy, Daddy..."  
  
Dooku moaned, fighting back the urge to come right then. He took Sören's cock in his hand, stroking it. "Good boy." He kissed Sören's neck, cock throbbing urgently at the moans Sören made, the way he shivered as he knew just where and how to kiss one of his most sensitive, erogenous places. "Such a good boy."  
  
"Oh god, Daddy, Pabbi, fuck me..."  
  
And then Dooku felt it. He was addressing  _both_  of them. Even though Maglor was Fëanor's son, Fëanor had been reincarnated as the much younger Sören, and when they were together years ago, before Sören knew who Maglor was, he liked the fact that Maglor was "a little bit" older, feeling taken care of.  
  
That seemed to set Maglor off as well, the sheer kinkiness of it, delicious, debauched sin; Dooku could feel Maglor's cock throbbing against his, could feel the surge of hot lust across their bond. "Yes, baby," he whispered, kissing Sören's jaw. "Your daddies are here."  
  
"Oh my god." Sören shuddered. "Oh my fucking god." He was gasping for breath now, his cock leaking so much precum the entire shaft was slick with it, and most of Dooku's hand. "Oh god. Oh god, Daddy... Daddy..."  
  
"That's it, baby." Maglor pet Sören's curls, stroked his face, played with a nipple. "Let your daddies take care of you. We love you so much..."  
  
"Yes we do." Dooku kissed Sören softly, sweetly, then more deeply, hungrily. "We love our precious boy..."  
  
" _Pabbi._ " There was an urgency in Sören's voice, and his entire body was quivering. Dooku could feel how close he was, and Dooku was close too. "Pabbi,  _ekki hætta, erfiðara... hraðar..._ "  
  
They were fucking him even harder now, bed rocking against the wall. The slap of their flesh competed with the moans and cries, the obscene wet suctioning sound of two cocks working in and out of Sören's slick channel threatening to undo them all. "Sören." Dooku kissed him again. "Sören, sweetheart."  
  
"Daddy. Daddy..."  
  
They were all so close. Dooku's thumb rubbed the frenulum of Sören's cock, holding them there at that edge just a moment longer, and then they passed the point of no return. "Come, love." Dooku's voice was raspy with need, with  _want_. "Come for Daddy. Come for your daddies..."  
  
"Pabbi!" Sören let out a wordless howl, and Dooku felt himself explode when Sören spurt over his chest and stomach, coming harder as Sören contracted around them, Maglor's cum flooding over his cock, knowing he was coming on Maglor's cock inside their beloved... "Daddy, oh  _fuck_!"  
  
Dooku shuddered and collapsed with a deep groan in Sören's arms, Sören and Maglor both petting him. The three trembled together in the exquisite, powerful climax, seemingly endless throbbing pleasure. Maglor was moaning so sweetly, so beautifully, almost like a song. For a moment, all was right with the world.  
  
Sören laughed - that full-bodied laugh that Dooku and Maglor had missed so much, the  _real_  laugh that he hadn't produced in over a month. He laughed and cried, bubbling with emotion. Dooku tenderly stroked his face and planted a little kiss on the tip of his nose.  
  
"I love you, sweetheart." Their eyes met, and held.  
  
"I love you too." Sören reached to stroke Maglor's chin, who took his hand and kissed his fingers. "Both of you. _Thank you._ " Sören let out a deep sigh, flexing. "God." He started laughing again. "Calling your past life's son and the reincarnation of your half-brother 'Daddy' isn't normal, but in this family it is, I guess."  
  
"That was..." Maglor blushed. "Wow. It was... holy fucking  _shit_ , wow." He laughed too.  
  
"I think we have a bit of a kink." Sören nodded.  
  
"Well..." Dooku's lips brushed Sören's forehead. "Let the record show we want to take care of you." He took Sören's hands in his. "We certainly don't expect you to be 'fun' all the time, we know you are a complex person and you feel things deeply, and that includes deep sorrow. But we've missed the fire in you."  
  
Sören nodded, and let go, sobbing. They held him, rocked him.  
  
Sören was quiet for the rest of the evening, but not as sad as he'd been, even giving a guilty little grin every time Maglor or Dooku looked at him.  
  
The next day Sören went to his classes as usual, and when he and Maglor came back home, Maglor decided to go to the store to pick up things for dinner, and asked Sören if he wanted to come along, and Sören surprised Dooku by saying, "I think I'm going to hang in the studio for a bit."  
  
Dooku couldn't help look in on him as dinner was cooking, and Sören was finally working on the painting that had been unfinished, the three of them laying in a garden post-coitus. Dooku smiled fondly as he watched Sören paint, and his breath caught at the intensity in Sören's eyes. He hardened, feeling the fire burning, the fire that had intoxicated him when they first met.  
  
After dinner Maglor went for a walk, and Sören went back to the studio. Before he could get too reabsorbed in what he'd been doing, Dooku paused in the doorway, and Sören looked at him.  
  
"Sorry to interrupt," Dooku said. "I just." He swallowed hard, feeling a little choked up at his  _relief_  that Sören was painting again. "I wanted to say how good it is to see you painting."  
  
"Oh." Sören smiled - that shy, sweet smile that took his breath away - and ran a hand through his curls. "I felt inspired, finally, I guess." He looked back up, and their eyes met. "You helped... Daddy."  
  
That did it. Dooku found himself rushing to Sören, scooping him up, kissing him passionately as he carried Sören over to the nest in the studio room. The two helped each other out of their trousers and Sören used the Force to produce the small bottle of lube he habitually carried in his pocket, his other pocket holding his phone. They moaned together as Sören impaled himself on Dooku's cock, and Sören began to ride, sitting on Dooku's lap, holding onto his shoulders.  
  
"Good boy," Dooku whispered, before kissing Sören deeply.  
  
They both moaned into the kiss, and then Sören panted, "I get a special horsie ride for being good, right, Daddy?"  
  
_Oh fuck._  Once again, that threatened to undo him, and Dooku shivered as his hands tightened on Sören's hips, fighting back an orgasm, not knowing quite why that was setting him off like it did, but it  _did_ , so very much. Memories of Fingolfin and Fëanor doing just this very thing, "a horsie ride from Daddy", coming impossibly hard together, sweet, sweet sin. "Yes, sweetheart. My boy gets a horsie ride for being such a strong, brave boy."  
  
Sören clung to him. "I love you."  
  
"I love you."  
  
"I'm trying." Their foreheads were pressed together, they breathed each other's breath. "I'm trying so hard..."  
  
"I know." Dooku kissed him. "I know. And it's going to be OK."  
  
"I want to be OK."  
  
"You're already doing so much better." Dooku kissed him again. "It's so good to have you back." He stroked Sören's face, his voice husky with emotion. "Stay with me."  
  
Sören kissed him hard, and shoved Dooku down on his back, hands on Dooku's chest as he rode harder, faster. Dooku smacked Sören's ass, and Sören cried out, riding even harder. "Wheeee," Sören said, and they both laughed, taking each other's hands.  
  
  
_  
  
  
On Wednesday, November thirteenth, on their way home from classes, Sören went with Maglor to the Corgi owner's house - it turned out she lived just a few blocks away.  
  
The Corgi had a litter of three puppies, two girls and a boy. The Icelandic sheepdog/Corgi mix puppies all had big ears, short legs, the curled spitz tail, an auburn and white coat, and were ridiculously fluffy. Sören made high-pitched squealing noises at them, and Maglor couldn't help grinning like an idiot at the cuteness.  
  
One of the puppies came right over to them, tongue lolling, tail wagging. "Well, hello," Maglor said, getting down on his knees. The puppy accepted pettings and started licking Maglor's hands. "Do you want to come home with us?"  
  
The puppy yipped as if to say "yes".  
  
Maglor scooped up the puppy and held it, rocking it like a baby, laughing as the puppy licked his face. He heard himself actually talking baby talk to the puppy. "Oh yes, you're a cute little fuzzy wuzzy baby puppy, yes you are. You're a sweet baby giving all those kisses and we're going to take you home and spoil you and rub your fuzzy little tummy and love you all up, our little fuzzy fluffy baby -"  
  
The puppy started licking Maglor's nose and put its tongue up Maglor's nose, making Sören howl. Maglor gave him a look, and Sören laughed even harder.  
  
The puppy turned out to be the boy. Maglor thanked the Corgi's owner profusely as Sören loaded the puppy into the carrier they'd bought, and even though Maglor had paid for the veterinary care of the Corgi and her litter, he still insisted on paying her extra for letting him have one of the dogs. She hugged him and invited them to dinner one of these nights, and Sören accepted, and after they took the dog's paperwork of his initial vet visits, they were off in the jeep to their house.  
  
Dooku greeted them at the door, hugging and kissing them both in turn.  
  
"I brought home a pet," Maglor said. "And one of Auli's pups."  
  
Sören cackled. "Ha ha." He elbowed Maglor.  
  
Dooku smiled. "Is he housebroken?"  
  
Maglor grinned. "I'm pretty sure the dog is."  
  
Sören stuck out his tongue at Maglor, and Maglor tweaked his nose before kissing it.  
  
"He needs a name," Sören said as they let the puppy out of the carrier to explore.  
  
Maglor didn't even have to think about it. "Huan."  
  
"Juan?"  
  
"No,  _Huan._ " Maglor glared. "After my brother's dog." Thinking of Celegorm or any of his brothers would always be like a punch in the gut, and a topic he'd rather avoid because it hurt too much, but he could at least do this in tribute.  
  
And then, he heard Vanimórë's voice in his head.  _Nothing is ever ended._  He had only intended to name the dog Huan in honor of Celegorm's companion, but...  
  
Huan was trying to climb on him again. Maglor got back down on his knees, sat on the floor and pet the puppy. "Good boy," he said as Huan rolled over for belly rubs. "That's a good dog. Good Huan."  
  
Huan barked, as if he recognized his name.  
  
"You approve of your name?"  
  
Huan barked again as if to say yes.  
  
Maglor felt a frisson down his spine.  _Don't even tell me..._  "You." He swallowed hard. "Did you come back to us?"  
  
Two urgent yips, and then a little whine, sad eyes.  
  
_Hells._  His eyes blurred with unshed tears. Sören was rubbing the top of his head, and Maglor took his hand, the other hand continuing to pet the dog. "I'm glad to see you again, old friend."  
  
Huan yipped, tail wagging, and got up and climbed on him. Maglor held Huan and rubbed his nose in the fur - even though he had that dog smell - kissed the dog's head. Huan responded by licking his face again, licking up his nose again.  
  
Then Huan barked and Maglor put him down. Huan bounded over to Dooku to get more pettings and love, then he ran past Dooku, down the hall, and they wondered what the dog was up to.  
  
Huan came back with a small drawstring bag in his mouth, that Maglor kept tucked into a corner of one of the shelves in the studio, between his composition books. A bag that held a  _palantir_ , that Maglor assumed "didn't work anymore" when he'd thought he'd lost the Song, though he'd kept it out of sentimental value and on the odd chance it  _did_ still work and just wouldn't work for him, to keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Maglor hadn't tried to look into it since the Song came back since there'd been too much going on.  _Too much everything._  
  
But now Huan was  _carrying the bag that held the palantir_. Maglor had wondered several times if Celegorm's dog had been a Maia, and this seemed to answer the question once and for all. Huan placed the bag at Maglor's feet and sat, cocking his head to one side and letting out a bark. He wagged his tail excitedly.  
  
"What is that?" Sören asked.  
  
Maglor unwrapped the  _palantir_. "Something you made, a long time ago." He handed it to Sören. "This might come in useful, in the fight we have ahead of us."  
  
In the meantime, there was peace. Real, true peace. After dinner, Huan sat on Maglor's lap, and Snúdur sat between him and Sören, purring away - Maglor didn't know whether he should be surprised or not surprised that Snúdur seemed accepting of the dog right away, like they were old friends reunited.  
  
Dooku perched on the arm of the sofa for a few minutes and Maglor leaned against him, breathing a soft little sigh as Dooku massaged his scalp.  
  
_I love you, you know,_  Dooku spoke into his mind.  
  
_I know._  Maglor kissed his hand.  _I love you too._  
  
Dooku started rubbing his shoulders, kneading. Now Sören was playing with his hair, his free hand going back and forth between petting Huan, petting Snúdur. Maglor pet the cat and the dog too, feeling as content as they looked.  
  
They weren't a conventional family, their life wasn't really normal, and Maglor knew they had a long, hard road ahead of them to try to break the Doom. But at least he had some hope that it would be broken, now. That perhaps, this time, things would work out, and what he had was now his to hold.  
  
After so long, Maglor Fëanorion had come home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is what I imagine Huan looks like, for those curious:
> 
> _
> 
> Also:
> 
> -The universe where Dooku and Maglor kill Justin together is my story [_Walls Come Down_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19701682), where Dooku and Maglor meet (and fall in love) in Berlin in 1989.
> 
> -A special shout-out to [the fic "Father and Son" by amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8163532) which is one of my favorite pieces of Fëanor/Fingolfin smut and gave me the "horsie ride" idea. <3


	50. The Ninth Wave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap, y'all! I'd like to thank everyone who's been reading, leaving kudos, and nice comments - I really, really appreciate it. 
> 
> While _Chains of Eternity_ is complete, the story isn't done - it continues in [_Flames of Eternity_](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19774741/chapters/46812241). I hope you'll join me on the next leg of our adventure over there.

**The Ninth Wave**

 

On Monday, November twenty-fifth, Sören had his thirty-fifth birthday. Not that it mattered anymore, now that he was no longer aging, but Maglor and Dooku still wanted to celebrate the life of the man they loved.  
  
Maglor convinced Sören to take the day off from classes, and he would as well. "I want to take you on a special trip," he said.  
  
"You coming with us?" Sören asked Dooku, finishing morning coffee.  
  
Dooku shook his head. Maglor and Dooku had talked about it privately the night before, and Dooku wasn't at all offended when Maglor explained it to him. "I'll stay behind with the animals and besides, I want to make you a nice dinner and a cake and that takes time." Dooku patted Sören. "You two go on, have fun."  
  
Maglor drove them to the small airport in Akureyri, and they flew into Reykjavik. When they got a rental car, Sören asked, "Oh, are we going to see my sister...?"  
  
"Not this time."  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
Maglor gave a little cryptic smile. "You'll see."  
  
He drove for the next two hours. The skies were grey today, and Iceland only got four hours of daylight in the winter; the skies were dramatic with wild sunset storm clouds, like fire and ash, when they reached their destination.  
  
"Reynisfjara," Sören whispered as they pulled in.  
  
It had been the place where, back in 2009, Maglor had asked Sören to move in with him - where Sören had broken down the last of his resolve to not get attached, not get involved with anyone, to allow himself comfort for at least awhile. It was significant enough to have featured in the two paintings Sören made of him during their time apart.  
  
Maglor felt a frisson when he got out of the car, knowing Sören was feeling it too. In this place they were coming full circle, ten years of history, where the past and the future collided.  
  
Maglor had taken his acoustic guitar on the plane, and he pulled it out of the trunk. They found a place to sit down in the black sand and watch the waves, sunset becoming twilight. Sören leaned on Maglor as he played, starting with the acoustic guitar version of the  _Noldolantë_ , singing in Elvish. Feeling, crying, Sören crying with him, seeing it all, walking his life with him through the Song, from joy and pride to desolation to a dare to hope again. Death and rebirth.  
  
They were silent when the song was over. Maglor took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself down, because he would have to drive back to Reykjavik and he couldn't do that if he was a sobbing wreck.  
  
Sören suggested a walk on the beach. Hand in hand they walked, Maglor carrying his guitar case over his shoulder. And then Sören stopped suddenly, his full lips parted, pupils blown wide.  
  
"What?"  
  
Sören pointed.  
  
Something was shining in the sea.  
  
They walked to where the tide was rolling in. The shining gleam rolled closer and closer, one crash of the tides, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine... and then it was there in the black sand, brilliant, blinding white, like a small moon. Sören used the Force to lift it into the air and it shone on them.  
  
Maglor couldn't even make words.  
  
Sören waved his hand and it flew over to them. Instinctively Maglor put his hand over Sören's to move Sören's hand away before he could grab it, remembering how it burned, and then he withdrew, realizing, and watched as Sören's hand grasped it. Not burning.  
  
Sören looked at it with awe.  
  
Maglor didn't bother to hide the tears that were flowing now, silently. It had been literally  _ages_  since he'd thrown that thing in the sea, and of course,  _of course_  here it was now.  _Nothing is ever ended._  Maglor hadn't known that the Silmaril would show up, when he'd planned to take Sören here for his thirty-fifth birthday, but he realized now that feeling of the trip being the right thing to do, being necessary, being fated...  
  
A chill went down Maglor's spine.  _Nothing is ever ended. Nothing is ever ended..._  
  
Sören threw his arms around Maglor and kissed him, hard.  
  
A victory kiss became something more, the two of them groaning as their tongues played together, bodies pressed together. It was a cold winter day, and Sören was so warm, the Silmaril providing additional heat like they were standing near a radiator. Sören started taking off his clothes as if it were the middle of summer, undressing Maglor as well. There was nobody else around, like the beach belonged to them.  
  
The Silmaril belonged to them. And they belonged to each other.  
  
The sea of stars above them, and the Silmaril shining in Sören's hand as the brightest star, Maglor lay on his back in the black sand, his glamour shed. He would have sand in his hair, and in places sand didn't belong, later, and he didn't care. Nothing else mattered.   
  
Kissing him passionately, Sören impaled himself on Maglor's cock, and began to rock his hips. Soon he was riding, and bathed in the light of the Silmaril, Sören was glorious. Not just in appearance, but Maglor could  _feel_ Sören's power. Past and future really  _were_  one here, the Flame Imperishable burning bright within and around Sören as never before. Maglor reached up to touch Sören's face, hand sliding down to rest on Sören's heart.  
  
"I love you," Maglor husked. "I love you, Sören. Fëanor."  
  
"I love you." Sören leaned down to kiss him, more tenderly and gently than before, playing with Maglor's hair, and then rained sweet little kisses over his face before planting a kiss over his heart. "My Song. My beautiful, magnificent Song."  
  
It was then that Sören opened Maglor's right hand, where the scar was burned into his palm. And Sören's hand that held the Silmaril pressed against Maglor's hand, so now they were both holding it.  
  
Maglor's first instinct was to yank it away - the memories of how it had seared his flesh, the agony - but the Silmaril felt pleasantly warm, and soft, like a bath or a blanket. Warm, soft, loving energy enfolded him, love melting in Sören's chocolate eyes, and it took Maglor's breath away.  
  
"What the _Hells_..."  
  
The light was getting brighter and brighter. The Silmaril was thrumming in his hand. The Northern Lights were lighting up the sky above them. Maglor had seen the aurora dozens of times in his years in Iceland, and it was breathtaking every time, one of the true wonders of the world, but this was beyond anything he'd ever seen, as if Fëanor himself were putting on a show just for him. Teals and violets wove together, streaks of gold and cyan and magenta.   
  
The sky seemed to sing. The sea. The stars. The entire world was singing, it seemed, Maglor was as deep in the Song as he'd ever been. The Silmaril was  _pounding_  now, still not too hot to the touch, and the white light was enveloping them, about to drown out the aurora, drown out Sören himself -  
  
Sören used the Force to lift up the Silmaril, and it settled back down over Maglor's heart. And when he looked at his hand, the scar was gone. His hand was restored to the way it had been before...  
  
Sören kissed him hard, and started to buck his hips furiously, riding with abandon. Maglor grabbed him, drove into him, surrendering to passion, fire calling to fire. He had never loved Fëanor more than he did right now, and he knew that love would only deepen as they shared eternity together,  _the way it was supposed to be_.   
  
Sören was stroking his hair, kissing him over and over again, hands roaming over him, and when Sören's hand was in his healed hand, they both choked up.  
  
"Macalaurë," Sören breathed.  
  
The pleasure was building and building, the two trembling, gasping for breath. Sören was still riding feverishly, his hard cock dripping onto Maglor's stomach. Maglor watched as Sören stroked himself a little, precum slicking his fingers and palm, and he brought his hand to Maglor's lips to taste. Maglor licked and sucked Sören's fingers, licked and kissed his palm, sucking his fingers some more and savoring the aftertaste, like it was divine nectar.  
  
Maglor took Sören's face in his hands and kissed him one last time. "Come with me."  
  
They came together, the aurora continuing to light up the sky, the Silmaril shining on them, Sören spilling over Maglor's stomach as Maglor spent into him, crying out into the stars, echoing into the sea, the sea sighing back at them as the waves rolled in.  
  
They held each other for a few minutes, spent - for now - and shattered. Before Sören could fall asleep like that, Maglor shook him gently, chuckling. "Ada, we need to go back."  
  
"OK, fine." Sören rolled his eyes in mock annoyance. He blew a raspberry in the air.  
  
They put their clothes back on and Maglor carried the guitar to the car, Sören carried the Silmaril. He sat with it clasped in his hands as he dozed off on the way back to Reykjavik, Maglor's Cocteau Twins mp3s playing softly in the background like a lullaby for goth children. And though Maglor kept his eyes on the road - especially important driving in Iceland in the winter - every now and again he stole glances at Sören, looking peaceful, innocent, beautiful.  
  
_A sleeping god._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I commissioned this piece of Sören and Maglor from [Kaprriss at deviantART](https://www.deviantart.com/kaprriss), and have waited till the very end to show it off:

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [~ Balefire ~](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18159113) by [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine)
  * [~ Interlude ~](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304610) by [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine)
  * [~ Balefire ~](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18159113) by [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine)
  * [~ Burnt Offerings ~](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18793534) by [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine)
  * [Homeward Bound](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18817750) by [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame)
  * [In the Company of Strangers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19257028) by [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame)
  * [What Dreams May Come](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19703425) by [Narya_Flame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Narya_Flame/pseuds/Narya_Flame)
  * [Walls Come Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19701682) by [verhalen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verhalen/pseuds/verhalen)
  * [Know Thyself](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20188039) by [verhalen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verhalen/pseuds/verhalen)




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